


Little Blue Riding Hood

by WackyGoofball



Series: The Shredding Project: Fairytales Retold [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Little Red Riding Hood Fusion, Animal Transformation, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Romance, Talking Animals, The Shredding Project, might be ooc-ish - dunno, not too much in fairytale style either, only loosely based on the fairytales which inspired the fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:39:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7920847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WackyGoofball/pseuds/WackyGoofball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fairytale shredded. </p><p>Brienne of Tarth is Little Blue Riding Hood, and the Red Hood is her role model, in search of the big bad wolf.</p><p>But how did a talking lion get into that tale? </p><p>And who is the man hiding under the Red Hood?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Little Blue Riding Hood and the Lion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WeirdDaydreamingFangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeirdDaydreamingFangirl/gifts).



> Hello everyone, thanks for looking into this story. (o・・o)/
> 
> This is part of the series "The Shredding Project" I mean to make. It started out as more of a fun project in the JBO forum, wherein we have a wonderful thread for fanfics we are never going to write. The basic idea was to *not-write* fairytale-inspired JB fics in which I completely and absolutely deconstruct the narrative most of the time by only writing it down as I went to get the idea out of my head, without bothering about style but really just getting the plot across, grammar mistakes notwithstanding. Apparently, this took on the forms of obsession, so here I am, writing those tales in all earnest now, instead of not-writing them. 
> 
> In any case, this is yet again un-beta'd. Yet again all mistakes are my precious little pests. And yeah, still no native. 
> 
> I stick to present tense even though that is not the fairytale language, but that is just part of my writing style that I do not wish to move away from. I hope that's alright. 
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy anyway. And apologies if I shredded your favorite fairytales a bit too much. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
> 
> I gift this to WeirdDaydreamingFangirl, after she said she liked the not-written version and was so utmost kind to gift her fabulous JB-fanfic "Couples Camp" to me. (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
> 
> Enjoy! (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

  


Brienne is a sweet child, if not a very pretty one, high in spirit, stubborn and fearless, with curiosity lighting up in her deep blue eyes, an active child always in search of an adventure. 

And very often, her thirst for adventure leads the young yet tall girl astray into the woods, no matter how often her father Selwyn implores her not to go. After all, the beasts live only a stone’s throw away from the path leading into the woods, only a fragile invisible wall woven out of magic between the here of men and the there of beasts. However, young Little Blue Riding Hood knows no fear, and no matter how fiercely she loves her father and otherwise does little to disobey him, she cannot keep away from the woods, even if she tried. 

For that, the task she has to fulfill is simply too important, and the adventures hiding underneath rocks and old oaks are just too tempting for her to ignore in favor of roaming through town, day in, day out. Needless to mention that Brienne is not particularly fond of the town and its people in general, safe for very few people, and her father foremost, whom she loves with a fierceness only the Gods will know.   
  
Every day, the freckled girl with straw-like blonde hair sets out into the woods on her own, a leather pouch around her shoulder, filled with cake to the top, which is easy enough since the baker took a liking to her and hence lets her have the cakes that didn't get sold the day before. 

And every day, Brienne skips down the honey-colored path made of pebbles and rocks leading into the dark, dark woods with a smile on her face, expecting her travelling companion always within a stone throw’s reach.

Some days, her friend, a glorious lion with a mane that seems to be spun out of massive gold residing on the other side of the invisible line between men and beasts, will keep her company as she skips down the road. Other days he will only walk amidst the shadows without exchanging a single word with her, though Brienne always knows him closeby as he sees her back and forth every day since she met him. 

He doesn't ever leave her side.

He protects her.

Always.

Of course, the lion is today there, too. And while he cannot _really_ smile the way humans do, though he can lift the corners of his mouth to reveal his fangs, Brienne knows it a smile when she looks into his beautiful green eyes when he catches sight of her anyway. And in fact, the lion and her father are one of the few who receive her smiles in turn because Brienne usually gets called upon it if she shows her ugly face when smiling or laughing, and hence got used to hiding her smile so not to get mocked for it. But with them, she can laugh as much as she wants and never has to fear for them to laugh at her, but only with her. 

“There you are, little one,” the lion says as she approaches. "You are quite late."

Because the lion is not just like any lion, no, no. Brienne found the one lion that can speak to become her friend, and while she would never be so foolish to let anyone know her secret – her father would be _so_ mad at her if he knew – she prides herself not just with the secret knowledge, but also by having befriended such a singular creature. 

Brienne flashes a broad smile at him before she folds her hands in her back and starts to skip down the yellow, pebble-filled road that seems to cut through the woods even stronger than the invisible wall between her and her friendly beast does. 

“So? To where are you heading again?” he asks casually. 

While the lion always accompanies her from one point to the other, he cannot follow her past a certain point in the woods, for beasts cannot enter certain parts of the forest the same way they cannot set foot, or rather paw, on the honey-colored road leading to town. An ancient magic prevents the beasts from walking down that road. 

It grew to be their kind of game that he tries to coax the truth out of her, but Brienne never tells it, only shakes her head and tells him that he has to guess it. And in years, the lion never learned her secret. Though at some point, he doesn't even have the ambition to make a correct guess. After all, that would inevitably lead to the game being over, and he can't deny that it is quite joyous to have her giggle and jump even higher when he _obviously_ makes a wrong guess. 

As always, the young yet tall girl tells him gleefully that she is supposed to bring the cake since she is “up for a visit” yet again.

The lion shakes his head, sending the silken hairs of his mane flying around as though they were waves, as he trots next to her, close enough that he can see and hear her, but far enough away from the invisible wall separating them. Though Brienne rarely feels this wall ever since she befriended the lion. At some point, she would like to leap across to the other side to touch his fur, press her nose against his mane that she imagines to be the softest of materials known to humankind, but she knows better than to break that rule. It’s one thing to steal into the woods against your father's wishes, but quite another to intrude the territory of the beasts, as both the lion and her father warn her repeatedly.  

Because it is dangerous.

Because not all beasts are like her friend.

Because beasts are vicious creatures that will bite off your head if you let them.

“So? How was your day?” she asks the lion.

“As usual,” the lion replies. “I hunted something to eat and scared off some weasels. As I do every other day.”

“You never tell me anything interesting!” Brienne pouts, puckering her broad lips. 

“That is because there is not much going on here on this side of the woods, child,” the lion tells her, offering a warm smile that he transmits only by matters of his emerald eyes. “And what interesting stories do _you_ have to tell from the other side of the road?”

“I beat up one of the farm boys,” she proclaims proudly, standing a bit taller.

“Why would you do that?”

“He called me names and said that I am ugly," Brienne replies, pulling the corners of her mouth down. 

“While that is most certainly unkind, do you think you needed to punch him for it?”

“I didn’t punch him first!” Brienne insists. “I told him to stop but he would not. I pushed him back to get away. He lunged at me. And then we got into a quarrel.”

“If that is so… I hope you got him well," the lion chuckles. 

“He cried for his mommy once I was finished with him,” Brienne says with a grin. “It was a tough struggle, but I won. I even chipped a tooth. See?”

She opens her mouth with her fingers to show the lion, who tilts his head at her, “Why would you be happy about chipping your tooth?”

“He lost two in turn,” Brienne tells him gleefully. “And those are my battle scars! They show that I fought bravely!”

“You shouldn’t get yourself into such a trouble,” the lion reminds her, as he often does. "If you end up getting hurt."

“You needn’t worry. I am strong enough to defend myself,” Brienne argues. “And for when I am on the road, I have _you_ to protect me, right?”

The lion chuckles as they go on walking.

That child...

“I need to ask you a question," Brienne says after a while, craning her neck. 

“Then go ahead and ask.”

“How comes that you always see me safely down the road? The people in town say that you should keep away from the beasts because they are of evil spirit and just wait for a chance to devour you whole," Brienne questions. "Just the other day, the smith's said that the beasts are vicious and that they are all the same, possessed by the evil spirits and devils looming in the woods. Yet, you are different. How is that?"

She looks at him with her big blue eyes, begging for an answer to appease her thirst for knowledge. 

“Well, if the people say so, then why do you keep waiting for me to arrive to accompany you, you tell me?"

“I trust you,” is her simple reply.

That is the one thing that she knows.

She trusts him.

And will always.

“Why? I am a _beast_ , right?” He smiles. "With thick paws and sharp claws, and even sharper fangs, hm?"

“You saved me before, remember? And you make sure that no other beast comes to eat me,” Brienne replies.

“That I did,” he agrees. “And what tells you that I won't devour you one day nevertheless?”

“You would have done that the first time around already, of course,” Brienne replies with a shrug of her shoulders. The lion shakes his head. The child is far too kind-hearted for this world which is full of lingering beasts.

Though the problem is that not all of those vicious creatures reside on his side of the invisible wall, but roam around the towns, wearing human skin. But no matter how many times he tells Brienne to stay out of the forest, he knows he will see her waiting by the crossroad the next day anyway.

Stubborn child, really.

“Did you hear?” Brienne asks, pulling the lion out of his thought as she keeps stressing the e-sound.

“Hear _what_? There aren't as many beasts who speak the common tongue, you foolish thing. If it's news from the towns, I can only have heard them from you.”

“The Red Hood was seen again.”

“Nonsense.”

“It's true! I've heard the people talk about him," Brienne insists. 

“The Red Hood doesn't exist. It's a story people make up because they like hero's tales.”

In a world as unforgiving and dark as this one, it's hardly a miracle that people like to retreat into the realm of tales, where heroes are there to slay the vicious beasts instead of having to fear that they come across the barrier anyway.

“He is real and one day I will be his apprentice!” Brienne pouts, stomping her feet for emphasis. 

“Which is why you wear your blue hood, I know,” he rolls his eyes. Ever since he got to know her, Brienne wears this hood as though it was her lucky charm, dreaming away from her small town, into the world of heroes and dragons and other creatures residing between the pages of children’s books and fairytales. The girl has too many dreams inside her head, for all the good it does her.

“And once I am his apprentice, he will show me around the woods. And then I can go visit you, too!” Brienne goes on, her eyes almost overflowing with excitement as those ideas keep forming solid pictures inside her childish mind. “The Red Hood lives in the woods, the smith's said it.”

“He probably doesn't. People don't live with the beasts,” the lion scolds her. “What reason would there be for this wall if everyone would cross it at his or her will?”

“He is no ordinary people. He is the Red Hood!” Brienne insists.

“And underneath the Red Hood is likely just a normal man like any other, or perhaps a lesser man, even.”

“You are wrong! He is a hero! And he will kill all the awful beasts who mean others harm! And the day will come that I will prove it to you,” the girl vows.

“Little one, you won’t, because I know for certain that this is just a tale. And you'd do better chasing another dream than that of a dream of a dream. The Red Hood is no role model for you. If he existed for real, he is one reckless fellow, and you should not seek travelling down his path.”

“A reckless fellow who will kill the big bad wolf!” Brienne shouts. 

She knows it.

He will slay that vicious beast that terrorizes towns big and small.

She is most certain of it.

The lion looks at her. “Who's told you that? The baker?”

“The butcher,” she corrects him.

“Because _he_ 's got to know,” the lion snorts.

They walk on a while longer, talking about some other matters, until they come to the point both know the lion cannot follow her across. Brienne thanks the lion for the safe passage, as she does every day, and tosses a bit of ham to him, for there is no trouble for objects to travel across the magical barrier, before skipping off again, to where he can’t follow her.

The lion sighs before eating the piece of ham, and venturing around the woods until she comes back again, to see her back to town.

“And you are certain that there is no way I can go off the road to come with you, if only just once?” she asks with a sigh. Brienne keeps bugging him daily that she wants to see his cave, and for him to show her what is in the woods in general. Which seems to have inspired her fascination for the Red Hood, who is rumored to be the only living man to survive in the realm of beasts as he is out to find and kill the big bad wolf.

“You are a human child, are you not?” he asks her in turn, looking her deep in the eye.

“I suppose.” She shrugs her shoulders.

“Do you have fur?”

“No?”

“Do you have paws and claws?”

“No?”

“Do you have teeth as sharp as mine?” the lion asks, flashing his enormous fangs at her, though Brienne does not even flinch. 

“I have a chipped tooth! See?” she replies, baring her teeth at him another time. 

“That doesn't count,” he chuckles softly.

“Aw. Then no.”

“Then you are no beast, you silly thing. And that means your place is on the road while mine is here, right beside it. Some rules are there for a reason. Even your precious Red Hood will know the rules, and only breaks them because he must.”

“But we can still meet at the crossroad, no?”

“For as long as you do not cross it, yes.”

Brienne smiles at him, glancing down as she sees her feet have crossed the honey-colored path and stepped onto grey pebbles again, leading back to her small hometown.

“Oh.”

“What is it?”

“I thought we’d have a little more time,” she says, her features dropping. "The way always seems so short when we walk side by side..."

She’d rather stay here all day long, skipping up and down the road. Brienne doesn’t like the town itself. The woods have something peaceful about themselves, something mysterious, the unspoken promise of adventure and acceptance at the same time, where her smile is hidden while she doesn't have to hide it. 

And the lion is there, of course. 

And the lion never calls her names in mockery – and means them. He may call her silly, but he does so the same way she knows it from people who care about her, like her father, or Goodwin while he was still alive.

That is why she likes to take little steps every now and then, if only to let that stroll last a little longer, to stretch out the last few seconds on the road made of honey.

“Well, you will be here tomorrow again anyways, right?” the lion tells her.

“Of course I will!” Brienne says, a small smile creeping back up her lips and freckled cheeks.

“Then you need not worry."

“And you will be there, too?”

“What else would I have to do but to escort you from one point to the other and back again? After all, I have nothing much to do but scare away the weasels.”

Brienne grins at him, baring her chipped tooth at him another time before she walks down the road. She turns around another time in the hope to see the lion once more, but as always, he has disappeared back into the shadows of the forest, out of her view and out of her reach.

The young girl lets out a small sigh as she fixes the hood around her shoulders before rushing back into town, into the arms of her father, who, of course, tells her yet again that she must not visit the woods though both know that she will tomorrow the latest.

And that is how the two spend most of their days. The lion makes sure that Brienne doesn’t get lost in the woods when she is “up for a visit”, while Brienne comes to serve as the only thing the lion finds himself looking forward to during the day. For truth be told, there is not much light in the dark part of the woods wherein the beasts reside.

But there is bright light in her big blue eyes whenever she speaks with a hope in her voice that the lion long since gave up on, and almost forgot, until she brought it back to life.

Time passes, days stretching into months, extending to years of walking back and forth upon or beside the honey-dipped road leading through the darkness like a single beam of light. Only just a stone's throw apart, yet an impossibly big distance between them. 

However, after some time, the lion finds himself waiting by the crossroad without catching sight of the familiar thatch of blonde hair spun out of rough straw or the blue hood flapping in the breeze. The lion waits for hours, but no sight of the young girl dreaming away of becoming the Red Hood’s apprentice, showing her chipped tooth to him, proud of her battle scars. 

And more than once, the lion feels tempted to dare to cross the road or steal into town, but he knows he cannot, or rather _must_ not, for beasts will end up being killed and chased back into their realm lying beyond the visible wall, deep in the woods where light is as rare as a harvest feast.

Eventually, the lion resigns himself to the idea that the freckled girl grew out of her childish mind, filled with enthusiasm, lacking a knowledge and understanding of the boundary between men and beasts, and integrated into the town’s life after all. Or at least finally listened to her father’s pleas to stay away from a place as dangerous as the forest. And while the lion knows he should be glad for it, because that means the girl should be safe, he can’t help but feel a pull in his heart.

The lion had hoped that, at least, he would get to tell her properly goodbye before their paths never crossed again, or rather, never crossed but only almost touched, but then he reminds himself that he is a beast, and that beasts do not have the luxury of demanding such things.

She never should have talked to him in the first place, he keeps telling himself.

The lion knew it would only be a matter of time until she would grow out of those shoes, but a selfish part residing deep within his heart had dared to hope that it would extend a while longer, that he would get to speak the common tongue a while longer, that he would have a purpose a while longer.

He simply thought he would have a little more time.

But so be it. For as long as Brienne is happy, he should be glad for her.

And if anything good comes out of the end of this arrangement, then it is that this gives him more time to dive deeper into the woods, far away from the honey-dipped road he cannot cross. 

After all, there is still a big bad wolf he has to find.


	2. Into the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lion finds something new in the woods.

Years pass, and the lion grows lonely and bitter again, as he had been before he had met the Little Blue Riding Hood, spending his days in isolation as he walks through the deepest parts of the forests, not even caring about the weasels anymore. 

While he won’t admit it, Brienne was the one thing that brought lightness to his darkest hours. The Gods may help him. He is a beast, a strong beast to be sure, he shouldn't be longing for the giggles of a freckled girl not very fair of face or for walks that had no true purpose compared to the one that drives him otherwise. 

For he has to find the big bad wolf, not the honey-dipped side of the road.

However, as he wanders through the deepest parts of the woods, having resigned himself to the life of beasts wholly again, he can’t help but let his mind lead astray back to the days beside the road of pebbled honey. As though the images were glued to the back of his eyelids. 

Just like he can’t help but wonder where she is, if she is well, and what became of her chipped tooth…

Perhaps he would not wasate too much thought on the matter if only he knew if she is well indeed. Because no matter how many times he tries to tell himself that she must be fine and simply forgot about that lingering beast from the other side of the road, a threat lingers even in the light of day. That something happened to her and that this is why she doens't come anymore. That she was in trouble and would have needed his support and he couldn't grant it. That she is... dead... and he would never know.

But the world has grown more hostile towards the beasts these past few years, preventing him from any sincere thought of crossing the barriers. People have been on the hunt again, as the seasons come and go. More often than ever, he had to see as they roamed through the woods with their pitchforks and torches, their bows and clubs, swords and daggers, and the vicious traps hidden underneath dry leaves. 

Not that the hunt itself is a great surprise for the lion. The lion knows that men hate the beasts, for more than one reason. It's not just blind fear that drives them, but beasts will feed on humans if they want and if they find a way across, and that means themen have to strike back, obviously. It's a constant come and go. 

Which is why they have the magical spell to part men and beasts, but some beasts manage to slip through every now and then, past the barriers, off the usual tracks, and cause mischief in the towns, if not worse.

The lion knows better than that, for he wouldn’t ever prey on humans, and instead retreated further and further into the woods, to the point that the road is so far away that it would take him a three day’s march to even get anywhere close to it, if not longer. But the woods are wide, full of crevices and creeks to hide in, and that means he can always find a hiding place that will allow him to keep away from the other beasts, and the humans with the pitchforks the same way.

He has no business with either one, for he is a bit of both, but at the same time neither.   
  
The lion is on his daily tour through the woods in search of something to eat, hoping that he will get something else for dinner other than weasel.

He stops by a small lake to have a drink. The lion bends down to extend his tongue into the water, eagerly licking the cold water seeping through the fur of his paws as he stands a bit inside it. He closes his eyes for a moment, tired of his own reflection, but then his eyes flicker back open as he hears a small sound, almost not audible.

In the water's reflection he can see something moving behind him as silent as a cat short before killing a mouse. He growls as he turns around to scare off the intruder, only to see a tall figure with a blue hood with a bow in hand standing before him.

The lion blinks, perplex. The blue hood seems familiar. But before he can contemplate on the matter, the hooded person shoots at him with one of the arrows. The lion can barely dodge by jumping to the side. The hooded person shoots arrows in succession, but the lion gets away each time. This is not the first time he had to escape such attack, so he knows how to move. The lion then lunges at the intruder and knocks the hooded person to the ground. To his shock, there is now a dagger to his throat, scratching over his fur as though it was meant to shave him, though the dagger is close enough to his flesh that he can feel the smallest dribble of blood trickling down the side of his thick neck. However, to his even greater shock, the hood fell off the person's head, revealing the face underneath.

Blue.

Blue light.   
  
“Brienne?!”

“Get off of me, NOW!” she growls, baring her teeth at him as though she was a lion, too. The lion does so at once, still shocked that there now stands a tall woman in front of him. Still ugly, to be sure, but no less imposing, all muscle and fierceness, the light dancing over her straw-like hair as though it was a halo.

This is no longer the girl who proudly presented to him her chipped tooth, but at the same time... she is. There is no mistaking. This is her.

This is Brienne.

A grown woman now, but still Brienne.

“Brienne, it's me. Don't you recognize me?” he asks once he sees that she still has the dagger, ready to slash him.

“Oh, I do recognize you, beast. All of you! I remember you!” she hisses with fury in her big blue eyes, turbulent as a storm.

The lion looks at her, still perplex. Why does she hate him so much all of a sudden? He can’t remember having parted with her on bad terms. The last he has seen her, she smiled at him so brightly that no matter her ungainly looks, he has hardly ever seen anything that sweet.

Just why does she hate him to the point that she means to kill him?

Just what is going on here?

“What are you doing here in the woods?” he asks, still trying to comprehend, still trying to understand. 

She shouldn’t be here.

It is dangerous here.

Why is she here?!

“They are my home now,” Brienne replies, her voice dark, cutting through the air like the dagger in her hand.

“What of your father?” the lion asks. 

He wouldn't ever let her live in the woods, and neither can he imagine that she would live here, knowing her father home alone, afraid for her.

“YOU should know!” she curses, her eyes growing even more restless, the blue waves crushing behind her eyelids, reaching higher and higher, to the point that they gleam with wetness of unshed tears.

“Know what?” the lion asks. He just doesn’t understand.

“Your friends killed him years ago, as you should remember! When I was on the road with you. The day you led me to the flower field. And I grant you, what a good distraction that was! I fell for it! The gods know I did!” Brienne tells him, her voice full of anguish and loathing.

The lion remembers that day indeed. It was during summer and Brienne was very upset that day because her father had tried to marry her off to a lad named Ronnet and he had no better to do than to toss a rose to her feet and tell her how ugly she was and how that would be all she’d ever have of him. Brienne had been inconsolable.

She had run off into the woods then, away from town, away from her father, and the stupid lad, until the lion arrived and stopped her from going too far. The lion tried to calm her, but it was no use. Brienne couldn’t stop the tears from falling, hot and wet on her freckled cheeks to the point that it hurt. Not knowing what else to do, the lion told her that he would take her somewhere nice, somewhere far away from all the trouble. And Brienne had let him lead her to an open field in the other direction they usually travelled, far away from the town, where the woods thinned out to the point that he could stand in the light of the sun instead of the darkness of the shadows of the trees, almost close enough for them to touch, but just almost.

Brienne found solace in sitting in the flowers, none of which were roses, to be sure, while she marveled at the lion's golden fur as he laid in the sun, far enough away for him not to move past the magical barrier but close enough for Brienne to see him and feel his presence by her side.   
  
And the lion remembers now that this was the last time he's seen her, and she bid him farewell, thanking him for offering comfort, smiling the brightest of smiles at him before she went back home.

And after that, she never came again…

She was just gone.

Yet, here she is again.

“I did no such thing,” he argues vehemently.

He couldn’t. Ever.

“I am sorry to hear about your father, but I had no part in his killing. I have no friends here. I do not side with the beasts. I live on my own, Brienne. You know it. I told you. You know it true."

“You're all the same.”

“We are all beasts, that is right, but I did not kill your father. I never would have... _could_ have... Please, you have to believe me, you have to trust me.”

“I don't trust you.”

The lion blinks, the words cutting deeper than her dagger ever could, because he remembers the young girl who told him that she trusted him, and meant it from the bottom of her soul.

“What are you doing then? Killing all beasts?” he questions.

“All those responsible for my father's death. And whoever tries to kill me. Until I get to the big bad wolf,” Brienne tells him with narrowed eyes. "To open him from bowels to brain."

“You won't find him like that,” the lion argues.

Gods be good.

What happened to the girl without fear, without a single bad thought on her mind, dreaming of becoming her personal hero's apprentice, becoming a heroine with blue hood?

Just what happened while he was deep in the woods?

“Oh, so you know how to find him? And I thought you had nothing to do with him?” Brienne hisses, her eyes now only narrow slits of blue.

“I am searching him for my own reasons. I didn't find him yet. And I have been searching for longer than you did.”

“Lies.”

“Truth.”

“I should just kill you," Brienne growls, her chest rising and falling frantically. 

“... Then do it,” the lion says, licking his lips, straightening up, his emerald eyes never leaving her sapphire blue ones.

“What?!”

“Do it. End it now if you must. If you have no doubt that I was the one who's done it, you should have no trouble slaying the beast you find responsible of the crimes committed,” the lion says. “I will not hold you back.”  
  
The lion approaches her again, his eyes set on hers, but makes no move to protect himself or charge her. Brienne’s fists are shaking, tears in her eyes, but before she can even attempt to move, something else starts approaching. In the wink of an eye, Brienne has her bow ready and shoots over the lion's shoulder, whooshing past him to throw his golden mane to the side.

The lion turns around to see a lynx jumping past and ahead of him, an arrow sticking out of its side. The lion jumps atop the lynx and bites open its throat, killing it quickly before it can get to Brienne. The woman puts the hood back over her face and gathers her things.

“What do you intend to do now? I thought you had unfinished business with me.”

“I won’t kill you.”

“What made you change your mind so suddenly?” the lion asks, making his confusion no secret. 

“Your death has no use to me. You know nothing about the big bad wolf,” Brienne replies in a dark voice. “And you said that you wouldn't harm me. Well, then prove it to me.”

She runs off into the woods again, leaving the lion standing in the midst of the woods, the only noise being that of the water moving in the lake. He notes that the lynxes usually don’t attack like. While they prey on humans if they charge them first, they are smart enough to stay away from an animal bigger than them, and the lion is by far. Something must be driving that beast to such aggression, something dark, and the lion has the bad feeling that this won’t be the only beast with glassy eyes, attacking no matter the circumstance.

But it makes no difference to him now. There are much more pressing issues, he reminds himself.

Brienne.

Brienne is back.

Her father is dead.

And she hates him.

Just how could all those years pass without him knowing any of this?

The lion shakes his head, disappearing deeper into the woods until the shadows swallow him whole. 

Night will come soon enough.

* * *

 

Night falls and Brienne sits by a small fire to get some rest. The images of the lion still keep going through her mind. She wanted to kill him. She really did. Only the Gods know how often she imagined, how often she planned on slitting the beast’s throat for all the harm he’s done her, watch the bad blood spill out of him, warm and red and vicious. She made a vow to her dead father that she would find that lion and slay it and bring him his head, but when she had him, she could not do it. 

She just couldn't.

The Seven may be cursed for having given her such an ungainly body and a frail woman's heart along with it.

For she is both and neither at the same time, and the Seven shall know that she loathes that state of existence. She’d rather be only ugly, but for that as cold and hard as stone on the inside. That would prevent her from feeling this cold, unforgiving pain spreading in her ungainly body, that would prevent her from failing to carry out even that one kill as images of the former days, of flower fields and honey-dipped roads flashed across her mind.

She turns around at the sound of steps on dry leaves, grabs her dagger and lets her eyes wander through the darkness, trying to spot the source of the noise.

Suddenly, a shadow descends from the other shadows, is spit out by the darkness all around her. More and more layers of thick darkness are peeled away to reveal the shape of a man.

“Stay right where you are, or else you will have an arrow in your body soon enough!” Brienne yells, her bow and arrow ready to strike. But the man keeps approaching until the meager light of her campfire illuminates his features. "And make no mistake, if I shoot, I hit."

A man clad in red, boiled leather, lean and tall in frame, a sword belt hooked around his slim waist, a dagger on the other side. Leather boots and cotton breeches. A red hood obscuring his face, only his stubble throat and sharp jawline visible.

“You are... you are the Red Hood?” she can't help but stammer.

How many times did she listen to those tales? How many times did she whisper them to herself, knowing the words by heart? How many times did she envision herself running with the Red Hood, hunting down the big bad wolf?

And how many times was she a fool to believe that we would?

Yet, here he stands, as though he was cut out of her imagination and tossed into this world.

“That I am.”

“... What are you doing here?”

“News reached me that someone tries to do my job before me,” the man replies with a sly smile creeping up his lips. 

“You mean… to kill the big bad wolf.”

“Yes,” the Red Hood says. “Since that is my set-out task, I was quite upset to learn that someone now tried to do the task in my stead. And that would surely harm my reputation."

“He and his friends have killed my father while I was away. I have to find him.”

And kill him.

She has to take revenge.

For her father.

She has to.

Has to.

“I am sorry to hear that."

“Do you mean to keep me from it, then?” Brienne asks defensively. Because if he says he means to hold her back, then she will have to kill him. No one will keep her from her vengeance, from her promise, made upon muddy ground, kneeling by her father’s grave, tears hidden behind the heavy rain.

“What if I said yes?” the Red Hood questions, his voice easy and full of taunt, and truly not much like Brienne had imagined her childhood hero.

“Then I have to kill you, too,” Brienne replies simply.

“Well, good for me that I don't mean to keep you from it, then. I want to propose something else,” the Red Hood goes on to say.

"Propose?"

"An arrangement of mutual benefit."

“Which would be?”

“We will collaborate and find the wolf, _together_.”

“You, you mean you will help me?” Brienne blinks at the man.

She is so used to being alone.

She is alone, no way around it.

“Make no mistake, young lady,” the Hood huffs. “ _You_ 'll be the one helping _me_.”

“How?” Brienne asks.

“If you want to, I will take you with me during the night to hunt the wolf. That's the best way to find him, indeed the only way to find him. He's attracted to the moon, you know?”

“It is known,” Brienne huffs.

She may not be as experienced as the Red Hood, but she is not entirely stupid.

“We could use the nights to look for him. But I may warn you straight away. I will not search for him by day,” the Red Hood goes on.

“Why not?”

“That is not to concern you. You can either agree to come with me now and search for the beast that took your beloved father, or try to find him on your own and likely fail, or you don’t have my knowledge to fetch from. And I may add that I have... much more experience than you do.”

“I live in these woods for six years now!”

“I live here twice as long... apparently longer.”

“And still you didn't find him,” Brienne huffs.

“I had him a few times, but I didn't get to beat him,” he says, rolling up part of his sleeve to reveal some old scars marring his otherwise perfect skin. "Because finding a beast and slaying it are two very different things, in case you didn't know."

“... I am sorry,” Brienne replies, blinking at the wounds.

It’s ungracious to say such a thing. 

“My battle scars, I suppose…,” he says with a small smile, leaving Brienne blinking, before rolling his sleeve back down. “So? Do you want to partner up, yes or no? And be quick about your reply. I have to be on my way.”

“Yes!” she replies frantically, scrambling to her feet.

“Will you not need rest?” he asks with a small smile.

“I can rest once I am dead.”

“Now, that's a warrior's spirit,” he chuckles. “Well, then we should be on our way, no? But just to be sure, I won’t wait up for you. If you can’t keep up, you’ll have to stay behind.”

“I can run for hours without growing tired.”

“Now’s your time to prove it, then,” the Hood smirks before running ahead. Brienne grumbles before chasing after the man as the run and jump over creeks and crevices, over trees and stones, in search of the monster looming in the darkest parts of the woods, in search of a bit of vengeance, a bit of peace.   


Into the woods she must go.

Because in the woods, she can achieve her goals.

In the woods lie all the things she needs.

Regardless of the fact that in the woods also reside the beasts she cannot bear to look at.

But it makes no difference.

Into the woods, deep, and deeper, until all light fades away, for the moon to stand above them, to reveal the one creature she must slay.

The monster she will slay.

Without a second of a doubt.

Without a moment of regret.

Into the woods.


	3. Dreams in Darkness and in Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne runs into some trouble and needs some help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around and for the kudos and oh so kind comments. ♥♥♥
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this chapter! (^.^)\

Brienne lets a sigh as she tries to find a comfortable position, sitting upon a large oak which hums soothing lullabies as the wind whispers through the leaves, a music long since lost, one that is only sung in these parts of the woods, the other side of the wall.

As a child, she liked to believe that spirits of the woods resided in the trees, singing their strange yet beautiful songs, though Brienne knows it better now, that it’s just the wind, but she doesn’t care for as long as the wind brushes over her skin, keeping her straw-like streaks of hair out of her face, and keeps singing songs to her that are no songs but still sound like them.

To say that she is exhausted would be an understatement. Night after night, the Red Hood and she have been venturing through the woods in search of a sign for the big bad wolf, but there were no fresh traces just yet.

And while Brienne can well deal with exhaustion, for she is very endurable, as Goodwin always told her when still at a young age, it is ever more tiresome to be around the Red Hood.

Because that man is nothing like she had imagined him to be in her childhood fantasies, listening to his great tales when the townspeople told yet another story of the man supposed to defend the grand evil wearing a wolf’s skin.

Indeed, the Red Hood is bossy, snarky, smug, has no better to do than offend her whenever he gets a chance to tease her, and what is perhaps worst of all is that he is gone before day rises, leaving Brienne alone again, waiting for night to fall.

And the Gods know that Brienne loathes it to wait for someone.

Usually, they don’t come.

Or don’t come anymore.

But the Red Hood, no matter his foul mouth, does.

Every night since they met, he turned up the moment the sky turned dark, which is a strange sort of comfort Brienne would rather not admit to herself being one. Because she is not out for comfort, isn’t out for solace. She wants revenge, she wants payback from the beast that killed her father brutally and mercilessly, leaving her without a chance to come to his defense, or… at least die along with him.

Brienne shakes her head in the hope to shake out the evil thoughts along with it, readjusting her posture. Normally, one should think that trying to catch some sleep in a tree is a reckless thing to do, but Brienne learned the hard way that this is apparently one of the safest places in the realm of beasts. The creatures that can creep up the tree are too small to cause damage, and the ones that could open her throat if they wanted cannot climb as high as she can. Coupled with Brienne having a very light sleep, the trees grew to be her place for slumber, her bit of peace.

She allows her eyes to drift closed again as images of the lion play before her eyes, which only brings up acid in her mouth and an unsettling feeling deep in the pit of her stomach.

Can it be true what he said?

That he had no part in her father’s murder?

Or rather, _slaughter_?

The lion would have died, had she been fast enough to strike the second time. He didn’t fight back. He told her to do it, and he would have let her. A beast wouldn’t do that, would it? A true beast, that is. Beasts don’t know regret. They feed on the living and don’t care about the dead. The smith’s said it and she didn’t listen to his words when she should have.

But why else would the lion have taken her away to the flower field?

Or did he do that, knowing the beasts would strike the town, and meant to keep her safe?

Brienne hopes he did not, for that would mean the lion knows her even less than she believes him to. Because he should know that a world without her father in it is one empty space for her that he might just as well have let her walk across with him. Then he really just should have sent her back into town to get killed along with the others who lost their lives that day.

Or did he simply not know?

Brienne tries to drift away further, to happier memories, but the further she drifts into the darkness of her mind, the more her memories become twisted, wicked, and terrifying, into what became of them in the face of the beasts coming to her hometown.

Skipping down the honey-colored road morphs into running through the woods in the midst of the night, the beasts with gleaming honey-colored eyes chasing after her, meaning to consume her flesh.

Sword practice with Goodwin morphs into opening a stag’s throat as it was about to ram its antlers into her, for whatever evil seems to possess the beasts in this part of the woods.

Coming home to embrace her father who was always strong enough to lift her up despite her tall frame morphs into a room with blood spatters on the stone walls where she used to carve small figures into the stone when her father wasn’t watching, of herself and the lion.

Her father’s smile morphs into the blood-smeared grimace, his eyes glassy, his face damp with drying blood, his skin cold as ice when it should have been warm.

Sunshine morphs into rain.

Rain into blood.

Day into night.

Happiness into terror.

Terror into pain.

Brienne is roused by the shriek of a bird close by. She opens her eyes to see a giant eagle charging her without prelude. Before she can even react, because the animal moves at unnatural speed, rams its claws into her skin, right through her leather jerkin, drawing blood, and pecks at her face with a fury you would expect of an animal struggling for survival alone. Brienne tries to get the bird off of her, but she cannot grasp the animal, the wings too wide for her to get a grip on, and the body too light to get leverage from.

Those beasts are not like usual animals. They are by far more vicious, more aggressive, taller, bigger, and more ruthless. They will charge not to feed alone, but for reasons Brienne didn’t figure yet. Perhaps just for the thrill of the kill. Perhaps it’s madness. Perhaps something else.

She loses balance and falls off the tree, colliding with the hard ground covered by nothing but dry leaves, which do little to cushion the fall. Brienne lets out a shriek as she lands on her shoulder to the point that she believes her arm will come off at once.

The eagle keeps charging, meaning to scratch her eyes out, or so it seems.

Brienne desperately tries to get the bird off of her, but she cannot move her arm. Brienne tries to grasp her dagger with her other hand, but she can’t seem to get it.

For a moment, she believes that all is over now, but suddenly a shadow flies over her face and the bird is ripped off of her. Brienne turns her head slowly to see the lion as he bites the eagle in the throat, killing him instantly. Brienne stares at the two beasts as the life leaves the eagle and blood is smeared all over the lion’s mouth.

The lion’s emerald eyes fall on her, and for a split second she believes to see shame gleaming behind the fierce green, but then he licks over his lips to rid himself of some of the blood, approaching her, the dry leaves rustling beneath his big paws.

Brienne struggles to get up, but she cannot. Her entire body aches, burns, pulls, tears, mingled with shame an anger for having been that reckless. She sucks in big gulps of air, tearing her gaze away from the lion and into the blue sky above them, trying another time to find a way to straighten up, but it’s as though bolts of lightning went right through her.

“Lie still.”

Brienne can’t even look at the lion as he comes to stand right next to her, his big head looming above her, his golden mane a circle of light around his face. She grits her teeth, trying another time to move away.

She cannot bear to look at him.

No matter her doubts.

It all reminds her of the splatters on the wall, the beasts chasing her, meaning to kill her, devouring all happiness, all light.

“You need not fear,” the lion tells her. “I won’t do you any harm.”

“I want to… see you… try any… way,” Brienne growls, baring her teeth.

“I would not. I made a promise not to harm you and I intend to keep it.”

“A beast’s pro… promise. I bet… that’s worth… a lot.”

The lion grimaces.

She doesn’t trust him, Brienne said so, but to think that this is the same person who, while still a child, would blindly follow a beast to an open field to sit in the grass and pick flowers… it does nothing but sadden him.

If only he had…

If only…

“I think your shoulder is out of the socket. But I can't set it back in place with my paws. And it might be that more harm was done during the fall,” the lion goes on.

He wished he could treat her, but beasts are not meant for tender touches, for healing touches. They can only rip apart, or so it seems.

“... I just need to… to wait till night falls. The… the Red Hood will find me… and help me out, I'm sure. He always… finds me. You can go,” Brienne brings out under much strain.

“And have another bird come to scratch your big blue eyes out? I don't think so.”

“Why would you care?”

“Why would I not? I told you, I had no part in your father's murder. I never meant you ill, Brienne. Never.”

“Just leave me alone,” Brienne whispers, her lungs straining, her eyes taunting her with images full of darkness and terror.

“I will stay until nightfall. Then your Red Hood can come rescue you, and you’ll get to keep your eyes.”

“He doesn't… _rescue_ me. He helps me find the wolf,” Brienne insists.

She doesn’t need rescuing.

She doesn’t need protection.

She just needs a chance of revenge.

“Of course he does,” the lion shakes his head.

“You think I am making this up, don't you? I… travel with the Red Hood now. So much to how it's all just a tale,” Brienne snarls.

“Lions can be wrong, too.”

And are more often than he would like them to.   
  
“And so can be humans.”

The lion looks at her with a sad grimace before he sits down beside her.

“I told you to leave,” she says, her voice barely audible as the air keeps leaving her.

If only she could move.

Then she could run.

Run away.

“Try to make me,” he huffs, echoing her words.

“You think this is funny.”

“You think you don’t need the protection. And that is _foolish_ , not funny,” the lion argues.

“Why do you… even bother?”

She tried to kill him. Most beasts would give her a wide berth if they had a dagger at their throat the way the lion did.

Just why doesn’t he run away?

Why doesn’t he stay away?

Why does he return?

“Because I care.”

“Do you?”

“Of course.”

Brienne shakes her head lightly, allowing the bright light dancing through the treetops to blind her, to capture her in a strange kind of limbo between being wide awake and her mind blank, no images of her father’s dead body haunting her, no splatters of blood dancing over her eyelids.

Just light.

Nothing but light.

The lion stays by her side as he promised, not leaving her for only just a second to make sure that no beasts dare come near her. Once daylight starts to fade away, he gets up, however.

“I shall leave you now to your Red Hood. I think I heard him in the distance. He should arrive here shortly,” the lion says as he stands.

“What? Are you afraid of him?” Brienne asks with a low hiss, not allowing herself to feel the loss of the animal’s heat that was her a small yet steady comfort throughout the hours.

“I don't fear my own death, if that's what you are asking. I just think that he wouldn't want to see me.”

“... I am grateful. For... for that you stayed and... saved me,” Brienne says slowly, hesitantly. “From the eagle.”

“Always, Brienne.”  
  
With that the lion runs off and Brienne bites back tears as she gazes back into the light, hoping that it will blind her once more, but the daylight has faded too far away to blind her, leaving her mind to lead astray to the darker places all over.

Just why can’t things be black and white?

Why can’t beasts be beasts and men be men?

Why can’t she just hate the lion and be done?

* * *

 

A short time later, something else obscures her vision. Brienne blinks to see the Red Hood looming above her. And while she can’t see his eyes, she can see a soft smile tugging at his lips, though if she is not mistaken, there is a line of worry there as well, hidden behind smirking lips.

“It seems the lady landed herself in quite a trouble.”

“I am no lady,” she hisses.

If only she could move.

She would smack him right at that moment, hard.

Damn that eagle!

Damn all of this!

And damn the smug smile she can see even though he wears his hood.

“As you keep saying,” he sighs, but then looks at her more sternly. “What happened to you?”

“An eagle attacked me and I fell off the tree,” Brienne replies, feeling heat beneath the skin in her cheeks.

This is embarrassing.

She doesn’t want him to see her unable.

Vulnerable.

Weak.

“Did no one ever tell you that it’s dangerous to sleep in the trees unless you are a bird?”

“If I don't sleep in the trees, I have to sleep on the ground. And if I sleep on the ground, the lynxes and bobcats come. Then I rather take up with an eagle… most of the time. Today was an... exception, shall I say? And that one attacked out of nowhere. I have no idea what devil possessed the beast. Birds don’t eat human flesh.”

“The beasts are insane these days,” he agrees.

“Aren't they always?”

“Not like that, not as much. Wild? Yes. Ruthless? Sure. But to attack out of nowhere and for no good reason? I have never seen that, and I spent a long time here already. C'mon now. We got to see to it that we get you treated,” the Hood says before behind down to hook one arm under the hollow of her knees, the other propped up under her back to give as little strain to her injured arm as possible before lifting her up without effort.

Brienne can’t help the small squeal of surprise. After all, she is tall and heavy. The last time someone lifted her up like that, she was still a child, and her father was still there to do it.

“It’s easier like that," the Hood says. "Though of course, if you keep playing stupid, I can also drag you behind me, holding on to your boot."

“Put me down, then. I can walk on my own.”

“I want to see you try.”

“Then do it,” she dares him.

“Is that a challenge? I find it a boring one, because I know I will win, or rather, I know that you’ll lose because even if you managed to take a few steps, you’d only do more harm to you than was already done by the eagle. So let’s spare us both the shame and shut your mouth. Or else I will drop you and go off on my own.”

Brienne grumbles incoherent curses to herself, but can’t do much to resist him. Eventually, they reach a cave.

“Is this where you live?” Brienne asks, noting the maps and other things spread around the cave. A fireplace. A bedroll, even some words scribbled on the stone walls, alongside some figures, drawn with red clay or carved directly into the stone with a knife, for all she can see.

Almost like the ones she had back home.

“For now yes, but it changes every now and then, depending on… the season, shall I say? Don't _you_ have a cave?”

“I once had one, but the beasts kept coming in, so I left it vacant.”

"So you decided to climb into trees instead, trying to pretend to be a Blue Mockingbird?" he smirks.   
  
The Red Hood gently puts her down on the bedroll there, kneeling down beside her to start prodding her to determine the damage. Brienne would normally protest, or rather punch him to leave her alone, but she knows that she might lose feeling in her limb, if not all function, if nothing is done about her shoulder.

“Seems like your shoulder joint is out of the socket. We have to reset it. And that will be...,” he means to say, but she interrupts him. “ _Painful_ , I know. I had that before. I would have done it myself already, but...”

“It's better if someone else does it. So now...” He leans over her and Brienne can catch the smallest hint of his facial profile, which seem to be cut out of marble, but then white hot pain erupts in her body, blinding her even more than the daylight did before, as he sets the joint back in place. Brienne lets a cry of pain. 

“It's better when you are unprepared,” the Hood says with a grimace of sympathy.

“Well, good for you, for I was most definitely _not_ prepared," she replies, gritting her teeth against the pain. He helps her sit up. “Well, we'll have to take off your tunic and jerkin now.”  
  
“What?!” Brienne shrieks.

“You are over with scratches and cuts. The eagle surely did a number on you. Those wounds have to be treated, or else we risk infection. So now,” he tugs at her jerkin, but Brienne pulls back, “Don't touch me!”

The Hood lets out a long sigh. “I will have to if I am to treat those wounds. So now, let me help you. With your shoulder, you'll have enough trouble just sitting straight, woman. Accept help if it’s handed to you instead of mimicking a stubborn goat.”

Brienne starts undoing the laces on her own anyway, no matter if she has to do it with only one hand. No man gets to tell her what to do. Yet, once it's about getting the clothes over her hurting shoulder, she can't go any further, she has to realize. Wordlessly, the Red Hood helps her before she even has to ask and she begrudgingly accepts, grateful that she wears a bandage around her flat chest so not to give away too much of her ugly skin. The Red Hood goes on to treat her scratches with a self-made ointment, or so he explains to her. Brienne lets him treat her wounds wordlessly, her eyes constantly on him as he goes on with his ministration, his touch surprisingly soft and tender, when she expected him to just shove her from right to left to be done with it.

Brienne can’t even remember the last time someone touched her with care, and even the more prominent memories of her father touching her cheek with affection in just that manner fade away with every time she finds herself attacked, chased, almost killed.

But it’s the life she chose and Brienne wouldn’t ever dare complain.

Who to anyway?

The Red Hood?

He knows better than anyone else what such a life comes with, what sacrifice and what price. He pays that price the same way. 

“How did you fight off the eagle, by the way?” the Red Hood asks, pulling Brienne out of her thoughts back to the cave and his almost feather-like touches as he applies the ointment to her scratches.

“I did not… someone else did,” she admits.

“Who?”

“The talking lion. Have you ever seen him? Talked to him?” Brienne asks.

“A _talking_ lion? That sounds more like a singing snake or a dancing badger," he chuckles, amused. 

“He _can_ talk! And so can the wolf!” Brienne insists stubbornly.

“How would you know that? You've never been face to face with the wolf, have you?” the Hood argues.

“I heard him laugh one time. When he came to town with his friends, to kill the townspeople while they were in deep slumber. I'll never forget his voice, his laughter. Neither will I forget his shadow dancing on the walls…”

“What happened that day?” he asks, his voice even softer than his touch on her shoulder as he rubs his finger across a cut on her freckled shoulder.

And to be sure, that is a strange thing. Normally, the Hood seems to make for a living not just as a hunter for the big bad wolf, but also to mock her, never being too serious about much of anything.

And for reasons even more inexplicable to her than the change in his tone is the fact that she finds her mouth opening and the words spilling out, “It was short after my father was killed. The beasts kept coming again and again, until they came every single night night, stealing children from the cradles, eating men and women in their sleep, leaving nothing but blood and bone on the sheets. I ran into the woods, then. And never left since.”

“How did your father die?” he goes on, his voice even softer this time.

“… I came home after a day in the woods... after I... it is no matter. I stayed out for longer than I usually did. When I returned home, it was already dark outside. Normally, I always returned before darkness came… but that day… I had stayed away longer… I entered the house. We lived a bit on the outskirt of town. Father found even this small town too busy, or so he used to say. I went inside and slipped on something. I only later realized that it was blood. My father's... blood. And of some beasts he must have taken with him before he died. He was a marvelous warrior. He didn’t go down without fight.”

“That’s… terrible.”

Brienne says nothing.

Because it simply was… is.

“And you think the wolf did it?”

“He is their king, is he not?”

“Sure, but sometimes they act on their own,” the Hood argues, going on with his ministration. "Some like to sneak into the towns in search of blood."

“... The wolf was there. The imprint of his claws was on the wall. I’ve seen it myself. He had my father killed. And I always thought the talking lion helped him by having him distract me.”

“And do you really think the wolf would have cared to kill a girl your age? Would he have cared to see you dead or alive?”

“What?” she turns slightly to face him, regardless of the pull on her shoulder.

“Do you think you would have posed such a danger to him that he wanted to know you away? Or do you think he wouldn't have liked to kill you, too? Beasts are hungry for blood, no matter out of what body it seeps.”

“So you think the lion's had nothing to do with it?” Brienne asks slowly, hesitantly. 

“I still think you make that talking lion up, or just talk nonsense from the pain. I reckon it might be a lion, but a _talking_ one?” he says with a slight smile.

“We have magical barriers in the woods, and weasels as big as lynxes, and you think there can't be a talking lion?” Brienne returns, which only makes the Red Hood chortle, “Good point, I suppose.”

“He was there today. He fought off the eagle and stayed with me until you came. I told you.”

“He seemingly cares about you a great deal, then,” he goes on in a softer voice. "If he is real indeed."

“It makes no difference. He'll also disappear. Like all of them just disappear. Like you do when day comes,” Brienne says, her voice no more than a whisper barely carrying over the wet stone of the cave.

“That was part of the deal.”

“I don't begrudge you for it, be sure of that. I am aware of our arrangement. And I don’t mean to complain. It's just an observation. I have nowhere to stay and no one to stay for or with. That’s just a matter of fact.”

“Then what _do_ you have?”

“I have somewhere to go. Someone to find,” Brienne replies in a dark voice. “I have a big bad wolf to kill. I have revenge.”

“And after that?”

“After… that?” Brienne blinks at him.

“Well, after the deed is done. What comes after you slew that beast? What comes after the heroic act is fulfilled? What’s your plan? Where do you go?”

“I… don’t… know,” Brienne replies slowly.

Ever since she vowed to kill the wolf, Brienne never wasted a thought on what would be beyond that day. There was just this one thing: Kill the wolf. 

But beyond that?

There was nothing beyond that.

“Maybe you should just go back to the town, you know?" the Hood goes on. 

“What does that mean?” She grimaces.

“The beasts seem to tackle you specifically. There must be something to that. I never had to fight as many as I do these days when I am with you. Perchance it'd be for the best if you let me carry out your revenge in your stead and… just returned to town, to the other side of the wall,” the Red Hood replies slowly.

“Never.”

“Or some other town. Just not here. This place is not made for humans,” the Red Hood goes on. "As today showed us... painfully."

He points at the bloody lines marring her freckled skin.

“You are here, too,” Brienne argues, bowing her head slightly to avert her gaze. 

“I am a different matter.”

“So am I.”

"Not quite like that, I fear," he smiles at her sadly. “I just mean to say that you'd be safer there than you'd ever be here.”

“Like my father was safe?” Brienne growls, trying her best not to let fresh tears well up in her eyes.

“You know how I mean it, wench,” he grumbles.

“Do not call me wench,” she hisses.

“You should go home.”

“I have no home. My home is dead. It died along with my father, as he took his last breath. There is just this one thing for me to do. And that's to find the wolf and kill him. The rest doesn't matter.”

“... You should rest,” he says as he closes the lid of the ointment, moving away from her slightly to put her jerkin back around her shoulders. Brienne grabs the fabric with stiff fingers.

“What? But we have to find the wolf!” she insists.

“You won't find him like that. You can hardly sit, let alone stand, woman. You'll need to heal up a bit before we can set out together again,” the Red Hood argues. “You’d only slow me down.”

“I can do it!”

“You will not!” he curses, leaving Brienne stunned another time. She bites her lower lip, shrugging back into her tunic to cover herself. The Hood walks over to a makeshift table, or so it seems, to grab a drinking skin from it, uncaps it, and holds it out to her. Brienne takes a few hesitant sips before handing the skin back, running the back of her hand over her mouth to wipe off the remaining water, only to find an apple now outstretched to her.

“You should eat. I reckon your talking lion didn’t see to it that you got something proper to eat.”

Brienne snaps the fruit with her good hand, grumbling to herself as she eats hastily.

“Don't say anything.”

“ _Anything_ ,” the Hood chuckles softly, stretching out. Once she is done, Brienne finds herself blinking again and again.

“You should just go to sleep. I will head out to see about the traces we found the other night, though I reckon it’s a dead end anyways.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“We are partners. Looking after my partner is an important aspect of our arrangement.”

“How so?”

“Why? If you are not healthy, you are of no use for me, easy as that. So stop pouting and go to sleep. The way you furrow your eyebrows does nothing for your looks, by the way, so knock that off, will you?”

Brienne grumbles to herself, but the ache and tiredness in her body leaves not enough energy to fight back tonight.

She dozes off within the blink of an eye, into a blissful nothingness without splatters of blood, just darkness, warm darkness.

No taunting songs.

Just warmth.

Only warmth.


	4. Reconcile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne meets someone by the cave.

Brienne wakes up to the sound of birds chirping. She pries her eyes open slowly, needing a few moments to take in her surroundings as the milky film on her eyeballs fades away.  

Oh, that’s right. She is in the Red Hood’s cave.

Brienne shifts slightly, feeling a stabbing pain in her side.

And oh, that’s right, too. Her body is still a mess after the damned eagle’s assault.

Brienne glances around once she finds a more or less comfortable position to sit up, noting that she is alone in the cave. And while she knows that she shouldn’t be surprised, after all, the Red Hood told her so right from the beginning, Brienne still can’t help but feel a little lost, though she would never say so out loud.

When he is around, she has at least a sense of direction, towards the big bad wolf, but when the Hood is gone… it’s like all direction is lost and only nighttime is her one direction, her path, her means of travelling forward.

Brienne pulls her knees closer to her flat chest, as much as her aching body allows her to, to preserve the comforting heat that soothed her into pictureless slumber. She glances to the side to see a full skin of water and a self-made bowl carved out of wood, filled with berries and an apple beside her. The Red Hood must have left it there before he took off.

Brienne looks around another time. It’s curious enough that she never crossed paths with the Red Hood until he found her a while ago. Though Brienne can’t say she ever crossed that part of the woods either. That is the thing about those woods – they are so wide and so entangled that you can likely walk through them for a lifetime and still discover new places to hide. And to tell the truth, Brienne has never been as deep into the woods as she is now that she hunts with the Red Hood. Before, she somehow found herself along the lines of the magical barrier that holds beasts on the inside while granting humans free passage inside and outside alike. As though her body unconsciously sought the honey-pebbled road now a distant memory.

The cave itself is actually rather in the open, the entrance only a few feet from where the Hood put her down, the sunlight filtering through with little effort. Brienne herself never would have taken such a cave because they don’t offer as much protection as does one that leads deeper into the ground. But then again, the Red Hood likely knows what he is doing. If he was a reckless fellow, he would have gotten himself killed a long time ago.  

Brienne narrows her eyes as she sees something move through the shadows born out of the line of trees across the cave. The young woman grasps the dagger the Red Hood gladly left on her left side for easier access, tightening her grip around the handle, licking her lips in anticipation. She is not halfway bad with her left. Had the eagle not blocked her path to grab her blade, she would have fought him off earlier, that’s for sure.

This time, Brienne won’t be unprepared.

The shadow keeps moving through the other shadows, but Brienne can still detect the movement. She reconsiders and puts the dagger back down to grab a nearby stone fitting well into her palm, to toss in direction of the shadow. Small creatures will likely run away and hence mean no further harm, and bigger creatures will feel aggravated enough to at least reveal themselves. Brienne takes the dagger back in hand quickly as the stone is swallowed by the shadows.

A thud.

A groan.

“Ow! Seven Hells!”

Brienne stares. The Red Hood couldn’t…

But then the lion emerges from the shadow, his golden mane gleaming in the light of the new day as though it was light itself.

“Oh,” she says, her mouth standing open. Brienne didn’t really expect the lion to roam around the cave.

“I have to give you that much, your aim seemingly got even better over the years,” the lion grumbles as he moves closer. “And that even though you use your left, which is impressive enough.”

“I didn’t know it was you,” Brienne replies almost apologetically, but then sets her jaw in a straight line. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“You are aware that you don’t have claims to the woods, right? I am free to roam wherever it pleases me,” the lion scolds her with sarcasm in his deep voice.

“I… I didn’t mean it like that,” Brienne replies, averting her gaze slightly, but then her big blue eyes flicker back up to meet his emerald ones. “I hope I didn’t hit you too hard.”

“I have had far worse, don’t you worry,” the lion chuckles softly, now standing on the edge of the cave, noting with a slight bit of hope that Brienne doesn’t flinch away the way she used to ever since he saw her roaming through the woods. “And in any case, it makes sense that you try to scare the beasts away.”

“… I didn’t know it was you,” Brienne repeats, her voice barely audible this time.

“What became of you wanting to see me dead?”

“I told you that your death is no use to me. And I owe you a debt. For yesterday.”

“I see your savior, the Red Hood, tended to your wounds,” the lion says, looking her over. “Good.”

“He is _not_ my savior. I don’t need anyone to save me,” Brienne grumbles.

“I saw that yesterday,” the lion huffs.

“Oh, shut your mouth!” she curses.

“I am just glad that you are alright,” he says in a softer tone this time, making Brienne blink at him. “… Thank you.”

The lion studies her for a long moment before he speaks again. “So you meant it with that debt you say you owe me?”

“What?” Brienne stares at him.

“If you are sincere, I’d call in the favor right at this moment.”

“What then?” Brienne asks, snapping her jaws together, getting up all of her defenses at once.

“I want you to hear my side,” the lion goes on, not breaking eye-contact with her for only just a second. His emerald eyes are almost jade in the bright daylight.

“On what matter?”

“The matter that had you take a dagger to my throat with the intention of killing me.”

“I…” she stammers, but he is quick enough to interrupt her, “So you don’t mean to keep your vows?”

“I always do,” Brienne grumbles. “Then go ahead. I shall listen. I can’t make any promises to believe in what you have to say… but… I _will_ listen…”

“Thank you.”

“That is only because I owe you a debt,” Brienne grumbles, hugging her legs closer to her chest as she feels the heat draining out of her.

The pictures will come back, she is sure. And Brienne would rather just forget about them all.

The lion hops into the cave to sit down in front of her, his eyes leaving hers not once.

“So now. You seem to believe that I had a part in your father’s killing. I did not,” the lion begins. Brienne winces at the words spoken.

“I… think I got that by now. The Red Hood said…”

“Of course the _Red Hood’s_ opinion changes _everything_ ,” the lion rolls his eyes.

“I… just carry on. I’ll listen.”

“I didn’t know what was going on. I just know the last time I saw you. After we went to the flower field. I saw you off to the crossroad and went back to where I slept back in the day. And the next day, you didn’t come, and the day after… and all the days to come. I had no clue what was going on in town. You know that I cannot cross the border without putting people at risk… or myself for the matter. I thought you just didn’t want to see me anymore, or had other to do. I had no idea about what happened to your dear father or the townspeople.”

“Where were you, then?” Brienne asks, her voice no more than a whisper.

“In the woods. I retreated deeper and deeper,” the lion grimaces, noting the edge of desperation in her voice, the question of “why did you leave me” lingering in the air while left unspoken.

“Why would you do that?”

“What reason was there for me to stay by the road where the humans have easy access to get their hands on a lion’s pelt?” the lion replies.

“What reason was there to stay by the road _ever_ , then?” Brienne asks slowly.

“Why? You kept coming each day to skip down the road to pay a visit to whoever it may be. What was I supposed to do? Let the weasels eat you?” he says with a soft smile.

Brienne blinks.

He stayed because of her…

“… The people increased the patrols and hunts after the first ambush,” she mutters. “They killed many beasts that came too close to the border.”

“Which made it very dangerous for the beasts to stay in close periphery to the town and the barrier in general. I imagine that most will have retreated about as much as I did, but those who meant to hunt…,” the lion says, his voice trailing off, and Brienne completes with a slow nod, “Used the night to strike, when all lay sleeping.”

“Exactly.”

“So you… never had to do with the wolf,” Brienne says, trying to make it real for herself.

Because she spent so many nights dreaming about the lion standing next to the wolf, laughing, their snouts blood-smeared, their eyes a wicked kind yellow.

“I _have_ to do with the wolf, but not on friendly terms. I want him dead, too,” the lion corrects her.

“Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

“But what reasons?” Brienne demands.

Just why can’t people say what they mean instead of hiding behind half-truths?

This is all confusing enough for her.

“My reasons that need not concern you. And if it is you any solace, I am hardly successful by day,” the lion replies.

“He likes the moon more than the sun, the Red Hood said.”

“Yeah, then the Red Hood got that one thing right,” the lion grumbles.

“But… what of the flower field?” Brienne asks, her voice as soft as a feather’s touch.

“What of it?” The lion tilts his head at her.

“Why did you take me there that day? You only ever took me there… once.”

“I would have taken you there more often, had you liked, but you never came after that day,” the lion replies, attempting to smile, but he cannot, not really, instead he only present his white fangs as he pulls up the corners of his mouth. “I only found it… a short time before I took you there, in fact. Needless to mention that beasts don’t do well in the light of day, out in the open. Most men would find that easy prey, no?”

Brienne looks at him for a long moment before she speaks, “After all those ambushes I thought that you were one of them… and had played me… and even if not, didn’t tell me to prevent me from being there, out of care or fear or whatever it may be. I thought that… I thought… that you only took me there with something else in mind…”

“Well, naturally. Beasts are meant to be vicious creatures.”

“So you mean to say that you only left because I didn’t come by anymore.” Brienne grimaces.

“Exactly. And it must have been one wicked twist of fate that I never crossed your path once you decided to enter the woods. I suppose we could have ruled out some many misunderstandings right from the start… and save us both the trouble of the dagger incident.”

“All those years…,” Brienne mutters, averting her gaze.

Roelle, a Septa who lived in the town and educated the children, always said that she was a slow child, and that seems to prove it. All those years Brienne had thought the lion responsible when it seems much more reasonable that he did not.

A stupid girl with even stupider dreams.

“Well, it’s not too late yet, is it? To reconcile?” the lion grimaces, noting her blank expression with a pang of worry.

“ _Reconcile_? I… if what you say is true, it’s simply that I owe you a debt, an apology for… for believing you one of them when you were not… for judging you for something you did not… for believing you to be something you are not.”

“I also made my mistakes, so I’d say we are even.”

“What mistakes did you make?” Brienne grimaces at him.

“I could have tried harder, I did not. I could have sneaked into town to see about you, but I not. There are many things I could have done… but did not. So I owe you a debt, too.”

“It’s dangerous for you to go to town,” Brienne argues.

It makes sense that he didn’t come.

“I still _could_ have. I couldn’t have crossed the road, but I could have come to town some other way, like the rest of them…”

The beasts can sometimes sneak through the barriers if they try hard enough. In some places along the invisible wall, the magic seems to have worn thin, which makes it penetrable here and there. You just have to know where to look and slip through. But beasts cannot take the roads, no matter what. If they set foot upon those pebbled paths, it will cause them more than a great deal of pain. The lion learned that lesson very soon when he first came to the woods. He stepped off the path before it got too dangerous for him, but if he had kept walking down that path, it would have cost him his life.

“Though I do wonder about that one thing,” he goes on.

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you come to the road again, after your father died and you thought me responsible for his murder? You easily could have come to the crossroad and surprise me, catch me from behind. While I am most certainly glad that you did not… you seemed so driven to see me dead. I can’t imagine that spirit wasn’t there short time after he died. So I ask myself what you prevented you from that?”

“The people in town prevented me from it. I already wanted to take off the next day, dagger in hand, but they were afraid that the children would get eaten, after so many lost their lives that night. They kept me locked up the first few days, to be sure that I didn’t harm myself in my grief and charge a beast on my own. And the Gods know I loathed them for it. They kept all children in the houses, and let them be outside only when under supervision. The men went out to hunt by day, and by night the beasts came to hunt back, no matter how tall the walls, no matter how high the fences. Nothing held them off.”

“They are unstoppable once they have set their eyes on a target, once they have smelled and tasted fresh blood.”

“Well, it carried on for a long time. Until the last ambush happened… the last one that I got to witness anyway. It was brutal. They came in masses. Wolves, lynxes, bobcats, eagles, stags, even weasels. They all came and started to attack. Later on I saw that there was one particular spot that they could easily travel across to the other side of the border. The magic did no more than burn some of their fur. They gathered until they were a large group and then went to town, or so I reckon now. I lived on my own in our house, though the other townspeople helped me out with food and the like… the beasts came to me once they had fully ambushed the town, only to attack our house. I jumped out through the window as they were about to strike and locked them in… then I set fire to it and killed them all. After that… I simply ran away, seeing what was going on in the town… I couldn’t have done anything… other than killing the big bad wolf. Once their king dies, they should no longer be that powerful, I believe. I ran into the woods… and never left since… I waited by the crossroad a few times, to see if you still roamed around. After all, I thought you responsible for all of this, too. But you never came.”

“Perchance I should have.”

“I am glad you did not.”

“Why?”

“I would have killed you from behind, no matter how dishonorable that would have been. I was… very angry back then.”

Driven.

Driven by anger and grief.

“And now?” he asks softly.

“Still angry, but… I see that maybe it was ill-founded. And I… I couldn’t forgive myself if I slew the one who had absolutely no part in any of this. So yes, I am… glad.”

Brienne doesn't dare to look at him as she speaks those words.

She just wants to believe.

Believe in the bit of good in this world still left.

That this one decision she made, the one friend she made was true and good, and that it was just circumstance that made it all foul and soiled, drenched in blood.

Brienne is just so tired of her own anger that seems to be burned into her bones.

A bit of peace with an old friend would be about just the right ointment to that particular pain.

She shakes her head to look back at the lion. Brienne has never been that close to him, she notes. Back in the day, there was always the impossible distance of a few feet between them, always that one stone’s throw away to be side by side, but without the possibility of meeting halfway, without touching, intercepting paths.

Brienne wordlessly extends her hand to brush through the animal’s golden mane, which is rougher than she pictured in her childish mind, but still soft and warm to leave her slightly shivering. The lion wordlessly lets her brush her fingers over his fur, indeed steps closer to allow her full access to study him, now that light hits his entire body instead of hiding in the shadows halfway.

“As a child, I always wondered what that felt like,” Brienne says with a small smile creeping up her lips. “And truth be told, I also wanted to know if I could ride you like a pony when I first got to know you.”

“Oh, good that you never had the idea to bring a saddle along,” the lion chuckles.

“It’s odd, isn’t it? We were so far apart these past years, yet here we are… closer than ever,” Brienne says, the words dribbling out of her mouth like lukewarm water. “Even closer than we were when I still skipped down the road, not knowing a thing.”

Even the stone’s throw of distance is suddenly gone.

Brienne pulls her hand away hesitantly, offering a crooked smile, “I am sorry… I drifted away.”

“Oh, no need to be sorry,” the lion chuckles. “I am just glad that… we could rule this out.”

“Is it true then that you kept around me since we met?” Brienne asks. “I thought I heard you more than once, creeping around the shadows.”

“You think I wouldn’t have anything more important to do than tag after you?” he argues with a not-smile.

“After you stayed by the road to see me back and forth for years?” Brienne argues. The lion lets out a chortle vibrating deep in his broad chest, shaking his head. “True.”

“You don't have to do that, though. Just so that you know.”

“Because you have your Red Hood? You should seek better protection.”

“Will you now also lecture me about going back to town?” Brienne narrows her eyes at him.

“The Red Hood did? Hm, seems like the fellow is not as dumb as I take him to be, for I am bound to agree with him.”

“I will not go back before I have the big bad wolf. What is so hard to understand about the matter?”

“It’s easy to understand, but hard to accept, Brienne. You endanger your life. If you trust the Red Hood to find the big bad wolf, what prevents you from letting him handle it entirely?”

“What prevents me is that I have to see the life seeping out of that beast. I have to be a part of it. I have to take my revenge. That is what prevents me.”

“Your stubbornness never fails to impress.”

“I swore it. And I keep my promises the best I can. Promises are among the few things that matter in this world.”

“Your father wouldn’t want you to endanger yourself, would he?”

“My father wouldn’t want some many things, but he is not there to share his opinion with me.”

“You miss him.”

“Of course I do,” Brienne grumbles, feeling her eyes sting with unshed tears.

“Well, don’t let that feeling override your sharp mind.”

“I don’t have a sharp mind.”

Septa Roelle used to tell her after all.

“But a bright one anyway,” the lion argues before moving behind her. Brienne’s gaze follows him as he simply plops down behind her, his fur brushing against the low of her back.

“What do you think you are doing?” Brienne narrows her eyes to tiny slits.

“I am tired, and the cave looks comfortable enough,” the lion replies in an easy voice.

“This is not my cave. It belongs to the Red Hood.”

“What is he supposed to complain about? That a lion dared sleep on his cushion?” he huffs, but then speaks with more sincerity. “Or do you want me to leave?”

“I don't tell you to stay,” Brienne replies defensively.

“But do you tell me to leave?”

“It’s not up to me to say, right? I don’t own these woods. So you can stay wherever it pleases you, so long you don’t mean harm to me, and you promised me you would not,” Brienne says. The lion chuckles, leaning his big head on his paws, closing his eyes.

“And you mean to protect me like _that_?” she huffs.

“No rat can take a shit within a mile’s radius without me hearing of it. Be sure, if someone comes to get you, I will be awake at once.”

Brienne chuckles softly, and eventually grows confident enough to lean back against the lion, the position quite comfortable to put as little strain on her hurting side as possible. The two halfway doze as the daylight keeps dancing through the leaves to paint white and yellow patterns on the ground as the birds and insects keep humming in the background, a steady buzz carrying throughout the entire forest.

It is strange, really, that during the day, the woods seem not half as threatening as they do by night. While beasts still roam around by day likewise, the trees don't seem as incredibly tall as they do with their cloaks woven out of shadows reaching higher and higher into the night’s sky, the animals have a distinct shape and size not obscured by darkness, and light is brought to even the darkest places.

Brienne, for the first time in a long time, finds herself a little more at peace with her past, the lion... but far more importantly with herself.


	5. Under the Red Hood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne gets a glimpse under the red hood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking around and leaving nice comments and kudos, you're such lovely people. ♥♥♥

Once the sky starts to turn darker, the lion gets up tentatively.

“I think I heard footsteps. Seems like your Red Hood is not far away. I should be gone, then.”

“Still afraid?” 

“Just not fond of a meeting," the lion chuckles. 

“Will I see you again?” Brienne asks hesitantly.

“Of course you will. Though I hope that the next greeting will be gentler than the one you gave me today,” the lion says, glancing up to where she hit him with the stone.

“I promise.”

“Then I will see you soon again. Be safe.”

The lion runs off. Brienne lets out a long sigh, finding it strangely easier to breathe.

* * *

 

Once night has fallen, the Red Hood comes back to the cave, as expected. 

“Ah, I already feared you’d be snoring hard enough to upset the bears,” he teases upon catching sight of her, making Brienne grumble wordlessly.

That man always has to tease her. 

And truly, he is not at all like she thought of him when still younger.

The Red Hood climbs into the cave with graceful strides, jumping over the rocks here and there.

“I got something for you,” he proclaims as he unhooks a leather bag from around his waist to put down beside her. The Hood undoes the knot around it to reveal some herbs inside. Brienne looks down at the plants and berries with a frown.

“Yeah, I know, not a fancy present, I admit, but they should do better than the paste I gave you last night. I used them myself, numerous times. The results are far, far better. Exceptionally far better. After all, we can’t have you be all lazy for the rest of your time here,” the Hood goes on, offering a sly grin. Brienne rolls her eyes as he goes ahead to grab what appears to be a self-made mortar. The Hood takes out some of the berries to drop into the bowl, tears apart some larger leaves to toss in as well, and then takes some thick leaves into his mouth to chew on them.

“You don't expect me to eat that, do you?” Brienne cocks an eyebrow at them. “Because that is not going to happen.”

“Ha, no, you rub it on the injuries, no worries,” the man replies as he spits the chewed up leaves into the bowl as well.

“Which is not going to happen either. That is disgusting.”

“Seven Hells, woman, that’s not meant for your cuts, it’s for that shoulder of yours. The spit’s apparently needed so the herb does much of anything. Trust me, this doesn’t taste very good, in fact, it’s quite nasty, but still I chew it so that this paste has the desired effect. So you should rather appreciate my effort and commitment here.”

“I can do without, thank you.”

“Of course you can, but that means you won’t be able to shoot an arrow within… hm, three weeks at least. So of course… we can go with your option, or… we go with mine, which will have you heal up _much_ faster.”

“You are making this up.”

“I dare you try it to convince yourself of the opposite.”

“If only to prove you wrong,” Brienne snarls.

“One can always count on your mulish stubbornness,” he grins as he keeps circling the pestle through the mortar to make a thick paste of the ingredients he tossed into the bowl. Once the Hood seems satisfied with the result, he moves closer to her with the bowl in hand.

“Well, same game as yesterday night. I need the shoulder free to get the ointment on you. Through clothing, it will hardly have the desired effect. And it leaves nasty stains, I may warn you.”

Brienne growls low in her throat as she struggles out of her jerkin and tunic to reveal her blank freckled shoulder, which is one huge bruise after the fall.

“Remind me again that I ought to give you some lessons about climbing trees.”

“I didn't fall off while climbing, I fell off because an eagle tried to scratch my eyes out,” Brienne insists, rolling her big blue eyes at him.

“Maybe you want to think about a rope around the waist?” he suggests with a grin.

“I think I will pass.”

“Or of course you could stay around the cave likewise. I reckon it’d make a lot of things easier for me, especially finding you in the night,” the Hood goes on.

“I won’t just sit around all day to wait till night falls,” Brienne huffs, only to realize that the Hood is keeping her distracted as he moves her injured shoulder.

“One stubborn wench you are,” he snickers, running his palm over her skin to rub the paste in thoroughly.

“Do not call me wench!”

“There, done,” he chuckles softly as he pulls away. "Wench."

Brienne blinks as she feels a strange sort of heat spreading throughout her skin, to all layers of flesh underneath.

“Try to move the arm a bit,” the Hood tells her. Brienne moves her right tentatively, surprised to see that she can indeed move it a lot more without pain stabbing her in the side.

“While those magical beasts from this side of the wall are a pain in the arse, those rather magical herbs and plants do have their advantages,” the Red Hood says with a sly grin. “And they don’t grow on the other side as far as I am concerned. In any case, with a thick bandage, you should be fine soon enough.”

“… Then help me with the bandage so we can go.”

“I was rather thinking about maybe delaying it until tomorrow at least,” the Hood argues.

“Then that is what you think,” Brienne replies, puckering her lips. Unimpressed, she grabs one of the bandages and starts to unwrap it, however clumsily that may be.

“Oh Seven Hells,” the Red Hood grumbles, seeing her struggle. “This hurts to watch.”

He does quick work to help her with the bandage.

“Happy now?”

Brienne gets up wordlessly, shrugging back into her tunic and jacket.

“So you are sincere about moving out tonight?” the Red Hood huffs. Brienne grabs her dagger, twists her belt so that the sheath is on the other side and puts the dagger there.

“Or are you just trying to punish me with silence for helping you out?”

“I just want to go.”

“Because one more night will make such a difference.”

“Every night that we don't find him means that he has another day to kill innocent people. So yes, it makes a difference.”

The Red Hood lets out a long sigh before grabbing his gear, too. He bows down in a grandeur gesture, “After you, m’lady.”

“I am no lady.”

“I love it how we tend to have the same conversations over and over,” he replies with a grin. Brienne grumbles, walking ahead, the Red Hood only a few steps after him. The two start to dash through the woods, searching for signs. Brienne observes that the Red Hood keeps pushing for speed.

He probably just wants to exhaust so that she gives in and retreats back to the cave.

But Brienne is having none of that, obviously.

“You never tell me about your past,” she says as he kneels on the ground to check some fresh traces they found.

“That is because I don't want to talk about my past,” the Red Hood replies, not turning her head by only just an inch.

“And why don’t you?”

“Why are you interested in my past?”

“I told you things about myself before.”

“I never forced you.”

“Are you afraid of telling me?”

“There is just nothing I wish to share. Not everyone wants to share stories from the past. In fact, I do like the reputation of the mysterious Red Hood,” the Red Hood argues.

“It’s because you don't trust me, right?” Brienne grimaces.

He probably still believes her a foolish young woman who can’t achieve much of anything. Or even worse, he may just as well consider her a girl with dagger in hand, a child, no more.

“I trust you with my life every night, don't I?” the Hood argues.

“Then why don't you tell me anything about you? I don't even know what your face looks like. I know nothing about you while you know… _a whole lot_ about me. You tell me again how we are supposed to be partners if that is so,” Brienne retorts.

“What is there to tell?” he huffs, getting up. “Now of course… I could tell you of my losses and my gains. Of the happiness I had before I ended up here… The life I let go. The people I let go of. I could tell you sweet little anecdotes of better days, and worse days… But what difference does it make – to us? Right at this moment? As you keep saying, we are here for a purpose, and that purpose has nothing to do with what was in my past life, not as far as it has to concern you.”

“It must be the past that drives you. You wouldn’t be after the big bad wolf if he had done you no harm. So _that_ is what makes a difference. I have my motivation, and you know it. But I don't know what drives you.”

“You drive me crazy.” The Red Hood rolls his broad shoulders. “If that counts.”

“You know how I mean it,” Brienne insists. “I know nothing about you, and yes, that makes a difference to our shared purpose. So it’d be kind of you if you… said something… anything.”

“I have no interest in revenge, if that's what you are asking. My goals are not as noble. I am only interested in my own gain,” the Red Hood tells her.

“And what _is_ your gain of killing the big bad wolf?” Brienne asks.

Just what does he have from this if not revenge?

What else would drive him to live such a life?

“Completion.”  
  
Brienne frowns but chooses not to comment further, noting the sincere tone in his voice. The Red Hood goes on walking in silence. They go on a while longer, but then a storm rises from the darkness of the woods.

“We ought to return to the cave,” the Hood says, rain dribbling down his chin. Brienne gives a nod. While she would rather keep going, she knows that the storms on this side of the wall can be more than unforgiving. They don’t come as often, but if they do, trees snap as though they were straw, and the rain can hit you so hard that the raindrops will leave bruises on your skin. The thunder rolls so deafeningly loud that one can feel it right in the ribcage and the lightning strikes so strong that the entire darkness of the woods momentarily fade away in the white light.

They are close to the cave when suddenly, a strong gust of wind whips her blue hood off her face – and Brienne realizes that same is true for the Red Hood. Thunder rolls and lightning strikes, revealing rather longish blond hair, a face as though it was hammered out of marble, and deep emerald eyes. Brienne can’t help but stare at him, the air catching in her throat.

So that’s him.

That’s… the Red Hood.

The man she envisioned when still a child, the hero… who, in reality, was nothing like that fairytale she liked to make of him.

“Are you happy now to have seen my face?” he huffs. “Just a human like you are one. Great surprise right there.”  
  
“You are the one to talk. You made a big secret about it,” Brienne retorts. Though she finds those eyes so very familiar, she can't put her finger on it. The Red Hood lets out a snort, pulling the hood back over his face before gesturing at her to follow. Brienne pulls her own hood back on and the two rush to the cave as the storm continues getting worse.

Eventually, the two arrive in the cave drenched from head to toe. The Red Hood instantly sets out to start a fire.

Brienne gets down close to the flame as she takes off her leather jerkin, noting that her shoulder gets better and better.

Though she will most definitely not admit it to the Red Hood unless he calls her upon it.

Brienne’s eyes snap to the side once she hears the sound of something wet hitting stone, only to see the Red Hood’s tunic smacking against the cave’s stones, leaving him with naked, muscular torso. Though Brienne also notes the scars running over his otherwise almost golden skin. He must have fought about as many beasts as the people in town kept saying.

“Like what you see?” he teases once he catches her looking at him. Brienne buries her head in her tunic and tells him to shut up. The Red Hood laughs smugly, though Brienne has yet to get used to the fact that she can now see his entire face as he laughs.

For some reason, he seems to be an entirely different person all of a sudden, now that the hood is gone…

It’s odd, really, once you see that your heroes are… human after all.

With bad character traits and antics.

Over with scars.

The Red Hood sits down next to her by the fire, still with bare chest, probably only to annoy her and see her squirm.

“So? Have you reached any decisions yet?”

“Regarding what matter?” Brienne asks, trying her best to hide her growing discomfort. She has never been close to a man. The last time she thought she was close to a boy, the same boy smacked the rose he was supposed to bring her to her feet.

Brienne had liked the idea for a small moment, before she made Ronnet’s acquaintance. She didn’t like the idea of being wed off, to be sure, but the idea that maybe that boy would grow to respect her, perchance one day grow to love her, even… Brienne liked the idea the more her father kept painting it in brighter colors. But then he came over from the other town to get to know her… and that had been the end of it.

And in fact, the end of some many things.

Of happiness.

Hope.

“What you want to do once we found the big bad wolf,” the Red Hood replies, watching the flames painting his emerald eyes a soft jade.

“I didn’t... think about it."

“Tell that yourself. Once you got something stuck inside your head, there is no way you won’t ponder on it until it comes apart," he snorts.

“Then suffice to say that I haven’t reached any conclusions yet.”

“You should,” he argues, his tone somewhat softening. “You still have all your life ahead of you.”

“Well, what will you do?”

“Hopefully leave those woods for good,” he tells her. 

“To where?” Brienne asks, hoping not to sound too desperate to know his direction past the point of killing the big bad wolf.

Or else he would probably get the silly idea that she would want to tag after him.

“Home.”

“Where is that?”

“Far away from here. Well, if it still is, that is.” the Hood grimaces. “One can never know if… places don’t just disappear…”

“Right,” Brienne whispers.

Like her hometown disappeared.

“As I said, I have no home anymore. There's just the woods now, or so it seems,” Brienne goes on.

Just why doesn't he understand?

“You can go back to town, or some other…”

“I never liked the town. People mocked me there for matters of my looks and behavior. For dreaming of becoming the apprentice of... doesn't matter. And now I'm the woman who's lived with the beasts for many years. They'll likely think me even more of a lingering beast than they ever did,” Brienne argues. “No matter what town I would go to.”

“Is that what they called you?” he asks.

“A number of times.” She shrugs her broad shoulders.

“That's unkind.”

She blinks at him.

“You are the one to talk,” Brienne huffs once she caught herself. 

“What? I call you wench as a pet name!” he grins. 

“You do not. You like to jest and tease and humiliate me.”

“Because you are an easy target. You take offense in everything.”

“I don't!”

“See, you even take offense in me pointing out to you that you take offense.” He gesticulates. 

“I... oh shut up already!” Brienne grumbles.

“Maybe I should just take you with me once the deed is done. Then you can go on annoying me all day long,” he chuckles.

“And you me,” Brienne huffs.

“That sounds quite splendid. How boring would my nights be if there wasn't this mulish woman trying to tell me where to go?”

“I _was_ right with the rocky path! His scent _was_ there!”  
  
The two go on bickering and arguing as the storm rages outside. Not that this is something particularly new. While of course, the hunt always takes precedence when they are out by night, the Red Hood is always up for fight and jest, and not always can Brienne just ignore him, but gets into one verbal fight after the other with him.

But for some reason a barrier seems removed now that the hood came off to reveal his face. Brienne never prided herself being good at reading people, in fact, she is very bad it as far as she is concerned, which made it ever the harder for her to figure out if the Hood meant what he said or was just teasing. Now that she sees his face, though, it seems a bit easier.

If only just a bit.

And what is perhaps even quite thrilling for her is the idea that he seems to enjoy himself talking to her, now that she can see what she believes to be a genuine smile ever so often. Septa Roelle used to tell her that no one was interested in her stupid stories about the Red Hood or her sword training. And that if Brienne had any intention of finding herself a young man to take interest in her, she’d do better knowing her boundaries, and that no one would care about what she has to say, for as long as it referred to the things Brienne was apparently interested in since a young age.

But the Red Hood… listens.

He even seems to care for what she has to say. Even earlier on of their collaboration, he’d listen to her suggestions. While he has a tendency to refute it at first or tease her about it, he at least listened to her and considered it.

Just like he returns.

It’s odd, really.

What grew to be a strange sort of routine for her by now used to be what the townspeople liked to mock her for beside her looks. That Brienne had silly ideas inside her head, believing herself the Red Hood’s apprentice. Yet, here she is, no longer a child who likes to believe that heroes are just like they are in the fantasies and fairytales, a grown woman, if an ugly one, out on the shared quest of getting the big bad wolf.

Fate is a curious companion.

As is loneliness.

Because loneliness seemingly always comes with longing.

For the things you don’t have.

The things you can’t have.

And probably won’t ever have.

“… Do you have a family to return to... in your home?” Brienne asks after a while, the Hood looks at her with an odd grimace.

“I thought I told you that I don’t want to talk about my past.”

“Well, technically, having a family would determine your future, no? Your place to return to, after we killed the big bad wolf?”

The Hood chuckles softly, “I hope you don’t think you outsmarted me with that.”

“I don’t mean to… I just… I just like to know the people I am supposed to trust.”

“Supposed to trust? So you don’t trust me after all? That is unsettling. I am _shocked_ ,” he huffs, grabbing his chest in mockery.

“I told you. How am I supposed to trust you if I don’t know you?” she insists.

Brienne is really just done not knowing a thing, always lingering in limbo.

If the hood fell tonight, then perhaps more will fall if she is brave enough to keep asking.

“As I keep saying: If you trust me with your life, then you trust me per se. Whatever happened in my past changes nothing about that.”

“Would it harm to tell me… some things?” Brienne argues.

It can’t be that difficult, can it?

Some names, some anecdotes.

Something.

 _Anything_.

To make him a person, and not just a legend that spread in her old hometown, a fantasy that kept her going when nothing else did.

“You won’t have gain from it, and neither will I, so I save us both the trouble.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d let me be judge of that,” Brienne grumbles.

She hates it when other people tell her what to do – and what she is supposed to know or not to know.

“And I’d appreciate it if you stopped prodding me for information I do not wish to share,” the Hood rolls his eyes, visibly annoyed.

And to tell the truth, Brienne is fed up right at this moment.

Because that icy thought kept creeping up her neck in a longer while, having reached her head by now. 

“Like you don’t want to share _actual_ information about the big bad wolf?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He looks at her.

“You never give me specific information about him. You know that he can speak, yet you act surprised when I say that he can. You don't tell me certain things. And don’t think I don’t realize that we’ve spent weeks not finding a single goo lead.”

At some point Brienne consoled herself with the idea that perhaps they were unlucky or it was the wrong season, but to think that in weeks and weeks, they didn’t have even a close encounter with the big bad wolf?

That either means the Hood is incredibly bad at reading traces… or he keeps her from finding the big bad wolf.

“He disappears time and time again,” the Hood argues.

“Tell me, do you even want to take me to the big bad wolf?”

“What?”

“The question is simple enough. Do you want to take me to the big bad wolf or are you just trying to make me tire of it and go back to town? Are you sending me on a quest without a goal in the hope that I will just give up?” Brienne snarls, her eyes flaring up with blue flames.

The Hood studies her for a long moment, licking his lips.

“Answer me already,” Brienne demands, but he remains silent.

“And you seriously ask me why I don’t trust you?”

The Hood’s facial expression then changes from shock to anger, or so it appears.

“Well, let me ask _this_ way around, m’lady: Who is more trustworthy? A man who sends you to your safe doom, or someone who rather _prevents_ you from it, even if that means that he doesn’t lead you straightly to your doom in the hope that you will realize that this is not what you should desire for yourself.”

“I don’t need you to make decisions for me. I am no child,” Brienne growls.

She was aware that he didn’t really consider her his equal, but he doesn’t get to treat her like a child. She is no longer the girl who skipped down the road, not knowing a thing, talking to a lion walking her back and forth from the other side of the wall. She is no longer that girl.

“No child, perhaps, but you are foolish to believe that you can do anything against the big bad wolf. I have spent _years_ fighting that beast. You see my scars. I didn’t earn them by just reading his tracks. I got them because he was about to _kill_ me, again and again, no matter how much I trained, no matter how well I prepared, no matter how great my rage. So I can safely say that I know better, based on my experience,” the Hood tells her in a low voice.

“It is not up to you to say what I am to do. You told me that you’d help me.”

“I told you that I’d let you help me, and that is what I did. We searched for tracks, we didn’t just wander around aimlessly, but I rather know you away from that beast than straightly lead you to his lair, if I were to find it.”

“Why did you ever talk to me if you never had any intention of bringing me to the big bad wolf?” Brienne brings out, her voice quivering.

She trusted this man!

At least to bring her to the big bad wolf!

“Because until I met you, I didn’t know someone had gotten herself into such danger, or else I would have done something about this far earlier, believe me. I had to react the moment on I knew, which was late enough, I admit, but something needed to be done… and that is what I did,” the Hood says, gritting his teeth.

“You lied to me.”

“It needed to be done,” he repeats.

“Why? Where do you take the right from to keep me from my revenge? How dare you lie to me? I trusted…,” Brienne swallows. “Just _why_?”

“Because I care about you. And as someone who cares about you, I make sure that you don’t die,” the Hood replies, his eyes shining as brightly as though they were on fire.

“By keeping me from doing the one thing that gives me purpose in life,” Brienne snarls.

“By keeping you from killing yourself for nonsense.”

“Nonsense? Tells me the same man who does the _exact_ same thing, hunting the big bad wolf,” Brienne huffs. “That’d make a fool of us both.”

“I do so for different reasons.”

“Reasons you don’t name.” Brienne shakes her head.

“Because they are not your concern.”

“Even now you lie to me.”

“I am not lying to you, I am merely pointing out to you… the truth.”

“Which is?”

“That you shouldn’t care about revenge, that you should let that go and embrace life again. You don’t have to be here. Nothing forces you to stay on this side of the wall. Your father won’t rise from the dead just because you kill that beast. I see your point that the wolf has to be stopped, but that doesn’t mean it has to be _you_ who stops him.”

“It _has_ to be me. I swore it, to my father…”

“He won’t witness it. And I can’t imagine he’d approve of it, were he to know. He’d want to know you safe, not hunting revenge like a bloodhound,” the Red Hood argues.

“You don’t know him,” Brienne argues, the air catching in her throat, suppressing any urge not to slap him for even daring to talk about her father.

“No, I don’t know him, but people who care about other people don't want to see harm done to the people they love.”

“So you want to tell me that… you just want to…,” Brienne stammers.

“ _Protect_ you, from getting yourself killed and from your own mulish, stubborn stupidity when it comes to your own life. You have a choice, you can just go, but no, instead you hunt revenge with the expertise with which you read the tracks. And while it may seem admirable with just how much devotion you dedicate yourself to that cause… you forget that this still doesn’t get you anywhere,” the Hood snarls. “It doesn’t even get you to the idea that you’d know what you’d want to do with your life once this is over. You just see revenge. And that’s something I’d like to protect you from indeed.”

“You don’t know that,” Brienne whispers.

Just where does all of this come from?

The night was so easy up to this point, what happened to the light mood that carried above the heavy raindrops outside?

“I know that because I have been where you were, for a long time, a long time ago.”

“You were out for revenge.”

“I was out for revenge, yes, and it consumed me. And I’d rather prevent you from that.”

“So you want to take revenge on the wolf, too?”

“I want _ed_ to. But… now it’s no longer about that. It’s about completion, as I said.”

“Whatever that is supposed to mean,” Brienne snorts.

Even now he can’t say it.

“It’s complicated.”

“And you think me too dumb to understand,” she huffs.

“I don’t think you dumb. I just don’t want to trouble you further than you are anyways. A girl who ran into the woods to live amongst the beasts needs more protection than she’d ever know,” the Hood retorts.

“I am no girl!” Brienne insists.

“ _Young woman_ , whatever. In any case, you continuously ignore any healthy instinct you should have, which is to run away from trouble and not into it. And I have a hard time preventing you from it, so the only thing I can do is to keep you out of trouble the best I can. And as that fall from the tree showed… this is hard enough. If an eagle can already do that much damage to you, I may warn you that you’ll be even less of a match to the big bad wolf.”

“You underestimate me,” Brienne growls, setting her jaw in a straight line.

No boy in town could beat her.

Goodwin said that she was endurable and stronger than any boy he’s trained.

She spent years refining her skill.

She is ready.

She has to be ready.

“I want to protect you.”

“You don’t believe in me,” Brienne argues. “Or else you’d let me do it.”

“I want to know you safe,” the Hood retorts. “That’s why I don’t let you for as long as I can help it.”

“Why?”

“Because I care about you.”

“Why? WHY?”

Why should he care?

Why would he care if he lies to her?

Who cares about her anyway?!

Brienne wants to scream, but she cannot as the air is stolen from her lungs with a single action.

The touch of warm lips against her own takes all of her air away, silences all of her screams.

 Brienne’s eyes flutter as the information seeps through her freckled skin that the Hood just… kissed her.

She is shocked, to say the least, and if Brienne is not mistaken, even more shock looks back at her through the Hood’s emerald eyes.

“I am sorry,” is all he brings out before he gathers his things in a hurry, shrugging into his jerkin and pulling the hood back over his head. Brienne can do nothing but stare.

“That wasn’t supposed to… I didn’t mean to… I never should have… I am sorry. Stay in the cave, for your own safety. I have to… go,” the Hood says, biting his lower lip, glancing at the sky that already starts to regain some lighter colors.

“I’m really sorry.”

With that the Hood disappears into the stormy night drifting away with fast strides. Brienne can still do nothing but stare at the opening of the cave, her chest heaving, unconsciously running her fingers over her lips.

Was that… was that the truth? Was that truly all that he hid underneath the red hood?

Was that the real him?

Because if it was, then…

Then he just…

And she just…

Brienne feels heat creeping up her freckled cheeks.

No one ever…

He said he wanted to protect her, he said he cared about her, he said that he did that so she would… not endanger herself.

But he lied to her, about the big bad wolf. 

How is she supposed to believe in any of this if he lied about _that_?

Just what is this?

And if it is true what he said tonight, then why did he kiss her and then run away?

Brienne leans back against a bigger stone, glancing into the flame.

Did he mean those words?

Did he mean that kiss?

Or did he just realize how ugly she was and ran off once realization hit him again? Like Red Ronnet back in the day... 

Brienne pulls her knees closer to her chest as the rain continues to fall outside.

Perhaps she was wrong about even more than she believed possible. And the Septa was right all along that Brienne was and is a slow child that just doesn’t understand when people lie to her, mock her, or mean things differently from  the way she is supposed to understand things.

Or perhaps…

What if he is right about the other things he said?

About her revenge?

Her revenge is what kept her going all those years. It can't be true that she is supposed to let that go. What is there other than her revenge?

Brienne lets out a ragged breath, confusion seeping through her like the warmth from the small flame fromt campfire. 

Perhaps she really should have waited until the storm was over before going out again.

Perhaps limbo was not at all that bad.

Perhaps the hood never should have been lifted.

Perhaps… perhaps.


	6. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne is angry an wanders off alone. 
> 
> But not for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking around and for all those lovely comments and kudos. You are so kind to someone who rips all those wonderful fairytales apart. ;)

Once morning rises, Brienne exits the cave, heavy rain notwithstanding. While the storm wore down, the raindrops are still heavy enough to make the blades of grass lie flat on the ground.

And the Gods know that she is angry, so the cooling rain is a true relief against her heated skin. Brienne is furious with the Red Hood, for daring to kiss her and more importantly… for daring to run off after that kiss.

For making her feel inadequate. Red Ronnet did that once, and she swore to herself to never allow someone to make her feel like this again. 

Brienne is done waiting for him.

Once and for all.

And she should have realized that a longer while ago, or rather, she long since should have accepted her gut feeling being true.

After all, he just admitted that he prevents her from finding the big bad wolf. Well, that leaves just one conclusion for Brienne: She is alone again and as such, she has likely better chances of finding the big bad wolf on her own.

At least no one will keep her from it, in contrast to the Red Hood.

The bastard.

While it remains true that she will have a hard time finding the beast by day, and in heavy rain, it will be even more difficult, Brienne doesn’t really care as long as she gets away from the cave and the Red Hood. If the man knows what is good for him, he will stay away from her once night starts to fall.

She will find the big bad wolf, alone.

She will kill the big bad wolf, alone.

If only to prove the Red Hood wrong, prove him that that she can, and that he was wrong in ever underestimating her.

Minutes stretch into hours of searching the ground for any sort of clue, a scent, a track, a footstep, but the mud and rain seem to swallow it all.

Brienne is so absorbed into the task, so absorbed in the anger bubbling deep in the pit of her stomach that she doesn’t realize that she is apparently losing direction, travelling down paths she can’t remember ever having set foot upon.

But Brienne doesn't care, even if she were to get lost.

She is rather lost than found by the wrong person.

The young woman curses the day the Red Hood ever found her. Weeks she spent in the company of this man, took up with his antics and comments, shared food and secrets with him, believing him her gateway to her sweet revenge, believing him her comrade, her friend, her…

Brienne shakes her head, the beads of rain falling out of her blonde bangs.

This is all so stupid.

She was so stupid.

Stupid.

Foolish.

Dumb.

“Brienne?”

The young woman whips her head around to see the lion standing there, his mane hanging down in long threads, his fur darker due to the rain.

“I mean no offense, but I am busy. If you want to converse, this is not the time, I fear, neither do I believe to be good company, for I am in a foul mood,” Brienne tells him straight away. She just has to get to somewhere, a single track, something, anything to convince her of it that she is not just inadequate and a slow child whom it took weeks to realize that she was being played.

“You are about to cross the border to the most dangerousl part of these woods, where even trees and plants are alive,” the lion warns her. “And I won’t let you in there for as long as I can help it.”

“Perchance that is where the big bad wolf is, though?” Brienne argues. “What better place for the worst of beasts to stay than the worst part of the woods?”

“You should better wait for that friend of yours to go with you, if you must… that is if you believe the big bad wolf in there. Or else you’ll get yourself killed.”

“He is NOT my friend!” Brienne shouts, but then stops herself.

He is not at fault for the Red Hood being a liar. And truth be told, he warned her about him, but Brienne still feels to hurt and angry to ponder on what else she did wrong in ever trusting the Red Hood.

“You still shouldn’t go on your own.”

“Just when will either of you stop trying to tell me what to do?!” Brienne snarls, too hurt to care if she causes the lion any grief.

She is just so fed up with it that apparently everyone around her keeps her from her goals.

Keeps her from fulfilling her promises.

Keeps her from doing the one thing she must.

“Brienne.”

“ _Please_ , just leave me… alone,” Brienne sighs, pulling the hood more into her face to hide her expression.

“I won’t leave you alone,” the lion argues.

“What now?”

“Well, if you cross the borders, then so will I.”

“I told you that…”

“And I told _you_ that you don’t own these woods. If I want to cross, then so I will,” the lion retorts, narrowing his emerald eyes at her.

“As you like it,” Brienne mutters before walking ahead, the lion tagging after her wordlessly.

They walk on a long while, doing their best to escape some many vicious plants that mean to grab them by the foot and paw every now and then, or mean to smack them to the side with their boughs.

“What did the Red Hood do to earn your rage? As far as I was concerned, you were rather convinced of him yesterday.”

“That is none of your business. Suffice to say that I was wrong in trusting him and that is all there is to it.”

“The Red Hood is probably just an idiot.”

“He is,” Brienne growls. “He made me believe that he would take me to the big bad wolf, but he has no intention to. Well, so be it. I can well hunt on my own. I don’t need him.”

She doesn't need anyone but herself and her revenge.

“So you do the opposite of what he said and now hunt him on your own?”

“I will hunt and kill him, and then I want to see the Red Hood’s stupid face as I hold the wolf’s head right in front of him,” Brienne growls, determination flickering inside her big blue eyes.

The lion grumbles wordlessly.

That is most definitely no good.

Such a mess.

They follow a trail they hope is that of the big bad wolf, but it soon turns out to be that it was just a giant bear that then got killed by some other beast, leaving the cadaver where the tracks come to a halt.

And it all reminds her of that bear from years before…

Brienne wants to cry out in frustration.

Not a single good lead.

And she wanted to prove him.

She wanted to prove it to the lion, to the Red Hood. Everyone.

Brienne glances up, realizing only now that the woods are even darker now. There is so little light in this part of the woods that you can’t tell day from night, or so it seems, but as some boughs shift you can see a stretch of sky that is now taking on the color of orange and pink.

“I must leave soon enough,” the lion says. “We should hurry back out of these parts of the woods, however. We have gone too far already.”

“You are free to go, but I won’t let that chance slip away. I have never been here. I have the feeling that he might be aroun. So go on, I can do this on my own, my friend.”

“ _Chance_? This lead was a dead-end, Brienne.”

“But there is certainly another. I have a feeling.”

“And you should have a feeling of exiting these woods before the trees and vines wake from their slumber,” the lion urges her.

“I can defend myself, fear not.”

“Brienne.”

“Go.”

“Brienne.”

“Go!”

The lion pulls his mouth into a sad frown as he watches Brienne glancing around to set out a new direction.

“Just go, please.”

The lion looks at her for a long moment, but then turns around abruptly and runs away. Brienne wrinkles her nose, running a gloved hand over her eyes before she carries on.

She won’t stop until she has a lead.

Brienne keeps running through the woods, briefly feeling reminded of skipping down the road again as she jumps over rocks and boulders as the path becomes harder to travel upon, but Brienne pushes those thoughts away.

She has to focus.

Focus on her task.

Her revenge.

No more distractions.

No more walking off the side of the road.

She will find her own road now, even if it’s not a honey-pebbled one, but one that runs through vines that mean to grab you and break your foot.

“There you are.”

Brienne whips her head around as the Red Hood emerges out of the shadows, the hood pulled over his face again.

“What are you doing here?” she snarls, suppressing any urge not to just toss a dagger at the man.

“I have to find you, that’s what I am to do. You get lost often enough.”

“Just leave me alone. I want nothing to do with you anymore,” Brienne growls. Even now he is up for jest, after what just happened the other night.

How dare he?!

“And I understand that, but… I never meant to cross that boundary. I never should have… That kiss was not intentional.”

Is he struggling?!

Brienne has never heard him fumble for words before. That man usually speaks with the same precision with which he handles the dagger. 

“ _Not intentional_ ,” Brienne repeats, turning every word into pure venom as it travels past her lips. 

“It shouldn’t have happened. This only complicates matters between us two.”

“ _Complicates matters between us two_? What complicates things for me is that you never meant to take me to the big bad wolf,” Brienne snarls.

“And hence you set out into the most dangerous parts of the woods in the hope that the wolf will be dumb enough to choose a place that offers no protection for his lair,” the Red Hood retorts. “You tell me again how you don’t need looking after when you instantly get yourself into trouble.”

“That is… I had a track,” Brienne grumbles.

“Was it a dead-end? If yes, then perhaps you realize that this was no smart move,” the Hood insists. “In fact a dangerous one.”

“It’s truly great of you to come out with that knowledge only now,” Brienne snorts.

“Had you waited until nightfall, I would have told you.”

“Since you are so open about giving me information… of _any_ kind.”

“I can’t deny anymore that I tried to keep you from the big bad wolf, but neither can I deny that I do that to see no harm being done to you. It's like you are screaming at me to come save you, as often as you land yourself in trouble,” he growls.

“I am in no trouble,” Brienne insists.

Suddenly she feels a blade hit the ground right beside her. Brienne looks down to see the Hood’s dagger wriggling in the ground, a vine cut off by it that was about to grab he by the leg.

“You were saying?”

“That proves nothing," Brienne growls, desperately trying to conceal the embarassment she feels spreading in her body. 

She wants to prove him wrong, not right, Seven Hells.

“Does it occur to you that this is not so much about proving someone right or wrong but plainly about survival? This is no contest, Brienne.”

She blinks at him, stunned not just because he seems to have anticipated just what she thought, but also at the mention of her name. He rarely calls her "Brienne". In fact, she can’t remember the last time she heard her name from anyone but the lion.

“You have no reason to trust me, I am aware of that, and I don't ask you to trust me either,” the Hood says. “But I ask you to believe me that I mean no harm to you… even if that meant to hurt you in the way I apparently did.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” Brienne snarls. “You couldn’t even if you wanted.”

She won’t let him know just how much that pained her.

She won’t expose herself like that ever again.

She won’t let him see any vulnerability.

She will prove him that she is stronger than this.

Strong enough to find the big bad wolf.

And kill him.

“Brienne…”

“If what you say is true and you want to protect me truly, you’ll have to get used to the idea that I will not back down. So you either share important information about the big bad wolf with me, or you can get lost,” Brienne tells him, her eyes ablaze with blue flames. “I won’t just let you lie to me again and again to keep me from the big bad wolf. I demand of you to promise me that you will not lie to me about the matter ever again.”

“Done,” he says simply.

“Then that is all there is to it. No further… _complications_ of the personal nature. A kiss is just a kiss. It doesn't mean anything. We should just both forget about it,” she adds. There is a moment of silence that has her tilting her head to look at him. The Red Hood studies her likewise.

“I am way too old for you anyways,” he replies with a more or less sheepish smile.

Brienne runs ahead without another word, not allowing him to take the lead for only just a moment. The Hood seemingly accepts that, tagging after her.

At some point, both have to stop to catch their breaths.

Brienne whirls her head around to regain orientation a bit, but only now notes that something is… familiar about this place.

“I have… been here before, I think,” she mutters as it dawns on her. The Red Hood looks around, frowning.

“I thought you never crossed the barrier here.”

“I never crossed from that side, no,” Brienne replies. “But from the other side…”

“What now?”

“I was here when still a child.”

“You crossed the barrier as a girl, coming from the town?”

“A few times… but not far, and only by day. I never had any trouble,” Brienne admits, walking further and further as her feet seem to regain familiarity with the ground she once set foot upon when days were bright and filled with honey-pebbled roads and cake.

“That's the part the beasts can't enter, no matter how strong they are,” the Red Hood notes. He stops in his track all of a sudden. Brienne frowns at him as he seemingly struggles, but then he looks at her another time before walking across, frowning to himself as he does. 

She has been here before, with her blue hood, a leather pouch filled with sweet cake, no bad thought on her mind, and hope in her eyes. Brienne finds herself drawn closer and closer to the familiar paths without a road.

They reach a small clearing.

“I have never been here before,” he says.

“But I have.”  
  
Brienne walks on past the clearing, to a small field with thick grass and large oak trees that are not at all threatening, even in the heavy rain. It’s a beautiful place indeed, a small island amidst the chaos and terror raging all around it. An island of good in all that bad. An island for men in the realm of the beasts, an island beasts cannot set foot upon.

The Red Hood glances around with a strange sort of fascination, until his eyes fall upon gravestones, decorated with whirls of moss and vines. He is stunned for a moment, but then it dawns on him as he sees Brienne slowly kneeling down by the gravestones, running her gloved hand over the inscribed stones.

“As a child I came here daily to visit my family. I always brought them cake… I didn't go here ever since my father died. The townspeople wouldn’t let me. And they wouldn’t bury him here, thinking it too dangerous since it is so close to the realm of the beasts,” Brienne whispers. “They burned his body instead. And the Gods know I loathed them for it. I am sure he wanted to be buried next to his family… They had been buried them here before the beasts ambushed the towns… indeed it was a safe place… until the beasts went wild, or else they never would have been put to rest here.”

Brienne removes her glove to feel the wet stone against her palm.

“I didn't pay a visit since.”  
  
The Red Hood looks to the side as he can hear Brienne sniffling, fresh tears now running down her freckled cheeks. 

“First my brother died. Then my two younger sisters... and my mother. I hardly remember her face... or their faces, but… In my childish mind, I was convinced that if I kept bringing them cake and kept talking to them daily, they wouldn't ever truly leave me. I thought that they’d be alive so long I talked to them. I told them about Father and the lion, what went on in town, everything, once I even brought wine for my mother after I heard my father say that she liked a good wine every now and then... what a foolish child I was.”

She shakes her head as more tears spill out of her eyes.  
  
The Red Hood bends down beside her wordlessly. Brienne lets it happen as the anguish of their deaths and her lost childhood return to her at once.

“Who knows if that didn’t bring the beasts to town, huh? A child rummaging through their area? Perchance that is what set them on our track in the first place?”

That thought never occurred to her right until this moment, and it leaves Brienne shaking with fear and cold.

What if it has always been her? 

“It is not your fault, Brienne.”

“Everyone told me: _Brienne, don't cross the barrier. Brienne, stay on this side of the woods, or else the beasts will come eat us all. Brienne, you’ll only bring them to town with you._ But I never listened. Even to my father and the lion I did not listen, wandering off again and again, in search of an adventure. What if that made the barrier weak? What if that was all me?”

“It wasn’t you.”

“How would you know?”

“Because they didn’t come from here. The magic would have had to wear thin here, but it has not. It’s the opposite direction where there seem to be the cracks,” the Red Hood argues. “I have seen it myself, as they crossed a few times. Not here. This wasn’t you.”

“But what if…?”

“ _It wasn’t you_. Men can cross the barrier, women can, children can. Only the beasts cannot travel across. That is the way this ancient magic was designed. That you wandered off the usual paths changes nothing about that, Brienne. If at all, you endangered yourself, but no one else, trust me in this,” the Hood insists.

And Brienne just wants to believe his words.

She couldn’t bear the thought that this was her fault now, too.

“I never visited again… once I was in the woods, I was so driven to find the big bad wolf that it never occurred to me that I didn’t… pay a visit… ever again,” Brienne admits, her voice shaking. “I left them alone, too… didn’t return.”

The Red Hood holds her by the shoulder to offer solace, a wordless gesture that Brienne doesn’t dare to say out loud is such a great comfort that she’d like to get lost in it, the heavy rain making no difference in that. She always came here alone, even her father wasn’t supposed to know. He had a little sort of shrine in the house where he lit a candle each day, but he never wanted to see the graves. He wouldn’t even share with Brienne just where those graves were, because he had buried his loved ones there before it became dangerous. And then he had feared that Brienne would do what she eventually did anyway, and find the graves on her own.

Brienne still remembers how she had wandered off alone, in search for an adventure, for fairies and goblins, only to get lost in the woods, the light of the day simply being swallowed, devoured, until nothing but darkness remained.

Still, Brienne had known no fear as she walked through the woods, over moving vines that seemed alive, until she found that clearing, and the gravestones with the names on it that she only knew from her father’s lips.

And since that day, the young girl had formed a new resolve, which was to visit each day. Eventually, she found another shorter passage, down the honey-pebbled road.

And that is how the ritual started to form, until it was, day in, day out, travelling with the lion back and forth the road, skipping and talking with cake in her pocket to give to her family members as a token to make sure that they were not forgotten. She even brought a bottle of wine once, stolen from the tavern the night before, because she heard from her father that her mother used to enjoy a good drop of wine every now and then.

And now here she is, no longer the girl she used to be, coming from the other side, without cake or wine, tears in her eyes, feeling hot against the cold of the rain.

“We should get someplace safe, Brienne,” the Red Hood says, pulling the young woman out of her thoughts and memories. She gets up wordlessly, numb from her fingertips to the tip of her toes.

“Maybe you want to… take the road,” he goes on, glancing around nervously.

“… I won’t go back to town,” Brienne mutters.

No way.

No matter her pain, there is no way.

She swore to herself not to cross the barrier until she killed the big bad wolf.

“You can walk back into the woods if you must, but you should use a safe road if you have it,” the Red Hood insists.

“Will you come with me?” Brienne asks, not looking at him

“I cannot.”

“Why?” Brienne frowns.

Didn't he say that he lied to her to protect her? Only now to leave her?

“I simply cannot.”

“Well, then neither can I,” she mutters stubbornly, though her voice lacks the strength.

The Hood looks at her for a long moment before taking her by the wrist and pulling her along as they keep walking through the woods, having to fend off some many vicious plants along the way, until they cross back into the less dangerous areas of the woods. The Hood finds them a small cave close by.

“I used to sleep here some years back,” he says, dragging Brienne along, who has said nothing since they took off. “It should do for the night.”

They get inside, and if Brienne cared, she’d likely note how similar this is to the last time the Hood brought her to the cave. He ignites a small flame, and to her surprise, he removes his hood now. She does the same, hugging her legs to her flat chest. At least she can look him in the eye now. 

“I didn’t know that there was another way to come to these parts of the woods,” he says, more to himself than to Brienne as he makes sure the flame gets bigger, feeding twigs and dry leaves to the flames. "Even less from the side of men."

Brienne says nothing, just looks at him.

“Do you need anything?” he then asks. Brienne looks at him for a long moment, studying his features, which are still too beautiful to be true in her opinion, though she cares little about that now.

“Nothing you can give me,” Brienne replies.

She’d need her father alive.

Her mother, her brother, her sisters.

Even though she only knows them from her father’s stories, they were her family, her sense of direction for a large part of her childhood, always at the end of the honey-pebbled road.

She’d need everything the way it was before all went wrong.

She’d need all the things she doesn’t have, and she’d need all the things to disappear that weigh heavy on her shoulders.

But the Red Hood can’t give that to her, even if he possessed magic.

“I wished there was something I could do for you,” he goes on solemnly, and again, Brienne would probably be surprised by his openness and the kind tones he uses on her now, but she doesn't care.

She doesn't even care about her anger for him anymore.

She just doesn’t want to feel this feeling anymore.

She doesn’t want to feel like this anymore.

He steps over to her to kneel down in front of Brienne, meaning to be on eye-level with her, but suddenly, he is pulled by the collar towards her, until their lips collide in a bruising kiss.

Brienne is just done being lonely.

She is done feeling alone in this world.

A kiss means that you are two, that you are not alone.

The Red Hood heavily breathes against her, but then pulls away slightly to look at her, “Brienne.”

“You said you wanted to help me,” Brienne says, her voice holding more confidence than does her heart. “Then so help me.”

Help her stop being lonely.

Brienne pulls him back to her mouth, breathing in the hot air of his mouth.

Normally, she never would.

She is not that bold, but tonight Brienne doesn’t care.

The stupid Septa isn’t there to tell her differently anyway.

There is in fact no one but them, so what does it matter?

She is no lady, so she might just as well steal a violent kiss for selfish reasons of not feeling alone in this world.

“Brienne, we shouldn’t do that,” the Hood mutters once he manages to pull away, despite the fact that he returns her kiss each time she presses her lips to his.

“I don't care. If you mean it, then… then help me.”

“With a kiss?”

“With not leaving me tonight. With not… letting me feel lonely for only just a night,” Brienne whispers, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Can you do that one thing for me, if you can’t bring me to the big bad wolf? Can you do that?”

Her lips search his with a kind of desperation she didn’t believe possible, and soon enough, her body seems just as desperate, desperate enough to overcome all of her insecurities as she fumbles for a stretch of his skin, something to hold on to, someone to hold on to, even if it’s the snarky Red Hood who is not at all like in the fairytales.

Brienne wouldn’t believe herself if she were to say it, but indeed she starts to hook a finger through the laces of the Red Hood’s jacket, trying to get more than the heated skin of his neck to touch, but that is when she feels her hand enclosed, pressed against his chest, so close that she can feel his heart hammering against her fingertips. Brienne realizes only now that she was almost blind, not looking at much of anything as she kissed him, only to open her eyes to the Red Hood holding her hand in his, to his heaving chest.

“We shouldn’t do something that you may regret later. And I am most certain that you will regret _that_.”

Brienne stares at him, feeling cold spread where there used to be heat.

A foolish thing.

Ugly thing.

What is she thinking?

He pulled away before, it’s…

But before she can go on her self-accusations, Brienne feels herself grabbed by the shoulders and turned around until she is firmly pressed against the Red Hood who pulls her to him, running a shaking hand through her straw-like hair.

“I will protect you, I promise you that. You are not alone, I can promise you that, too,” he mutters frantically, his heart beating even harder, to the point that it hammers in her own skull as her ear rests on his chest. “You are not alone, for as long as I am there, or so long you let me protect you. You are not alone.”

Brienne stares at the comfort of his touch that comes without heat, but only just with warmth.

“You are not alone, even when I am not there, you are not alone.”

Brienne feels fresh tears well up in her eyes as she allows herself to linger in that new feeling, that new sensation.

Of holding and being held.

Of feeling the loneliness bleed out of her like bad blood from a wound.

Brienne falls asleep in his arms as the rain keeps pouring outside, the tears dried on her cheeks, lingering in the feeling of not being lonely.

Not being alone.


	7. Paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne sees the lion and the Red Hood again.
> 
> It's a complication.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thanks for keeping around and for leaving those kind comments and kudos! ♥♥♥
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this chapter!

Brienne wakes up very late the next day, the sun standing high over the tree tops, painting them varying shades of rich green and yellow. She looks around confused, feeling her cheeks stick from dried tears, a faint taste of salt still on her lips.

Not that it comes to her as a surprise that the Red Hood is gone again, but she still feels a white-hot pain stabbing her in the side once the realization hits her yet again that he seemingly cannot stay around, even if he wanted – because Brienne could feel the desperation in his embrace and words, about meaning to stay if only he could.

However, then it dawns on her just what she did last night, kissing that man on her own, after she gave him hell for kissing her. _She kissed him_. Seven Hells.

Brienne lets out a low growl, growing more and more furious with herself.

How could she let herself go like that?

Septa Roelle taught her better than that. That is not what a lady does, even a not-lady doesn't do that.

And then the Red Hood of all people.

He will now doubt her even more as a hunter and warrior, and probably drag her back to town by her hair to make sure she stays out of trouble, having decided that she is unfit of the hunt.

Just what devil possessed her to do such a thing?

Because she meant that kiss more than she’d ever mean to admit.

Brienne meant that kiss and she wanted more.

And perchance she has to thank the Red Hood for not letting it go any further.

At some point Brienne finds herself hoping for the lion to jump up before the cave so she has someone to talk to, but to her surprise and dismay, the lion doesn’t show either. She cannot even hear him lingering close by.

Alone after all…

Brienne exits the cave later on to get some berries to eat. Her stomach couldn’t take more than that anyway. She keeps walking around aimlessly, treading through familiar territories to give her a faint if fake sense of home.

Once the sky starts to turn a warm shade of orange, the lion appears out of nowhere. Brienne is stunned. He is usually gone by that hour. Always.

Because he cannot stay either.

“What are you doing here? Normally you are… gone by now,” Brienne asks.

“I need to talk to you… and show you something, if you let me. I should have done it in a longer while… but… it’s complicated, shall I say?”

“What do you mean?” She studies his features, which remain a mystery to her at this point, unreadable.

“If you want me to, I will show you a secret tonight. _Do_ you want to?” he asks, looking her deep in the eye.

“Yes,” she replies resolutely.

Some truth would be nice for a change. And what does one more revelation do? At least it will leave more truth than lie in her life.

The lion sits down in front of her, his green eyes even more vibrant in the warm light of the disappearing sun.

“Well?” she frowns.

“You’ll have to show a bit of patience. I can’t do this at will.”

“You might just as well tell me.”

“Or I might just as well show you.”

Soon, the orange light fades into a dark olive, the sun disappearing completely, the moon no more than a narrow slit in the sky. And as the last beam of light dances over the lion’s golden mane, a shadow flitting across his body, the lion disappears before her eyes, his contours suddenly gone, and replaced by that of a man sitting before her cross-legged, bare.

Brienne can do nothing but stare at the man.

That is… the Red Hood.

The same eyes.

That’s him.

“You, you are the... you are the lion?!”

“Indeed,” he nods. “As I said… it’s… _complicated_.”  
  
Brienne gets up to touch his face once, brushing her long, callused hands over his stubbled chin, but then smacks him across it mightily. The Red Hood is stunned, only to have her beat him again and again.

“You lied to me, bastard!” she cries out, going on to punch him. The Red Hood has his dear trouble from stopping her from causing too much damage.

“I did _not_ lie to you! I didn't _tell_ you! There's a difference! And now stop hitting me! You don't beat naked men!”  
  
Brienne draws back, blushing furiously.

“If you were so kind, over there by the tree root you'll find a bundle of clothes. I would get them myself, but…”

“You stay right where you are.”  
  
Brienne hastily scrambles over to the root to find the bundle there and give it over to him. The Red Hood gets dressed again as Brienne turns around, hiding the brightest of blushes.

“How is that possible?” she asks, not looking at him.

She is obviously long since familiar with the nature of magic and curious creatures from this side of the woods. A talking lion? No problem, but a lion by day, a man by night? The same man? The man she kissed…

“A curse.”

“A curse?” she repeats

The lion is the Red Hood. Both are the same… just what is going on here?!

“Yes.”

“Who are you? And now don't say your parents named you Red Hood for real,” Brienne demands.

“I once was the heir of Tywin Lannister of Casterly Rock. Jaime Lannister was my name back in the day. The Lion of Lannister, they sometimes called me, even if in mockery more often than I'd like to admit.”

It’s been so long since he heard his name the last time… or spoke it. At some point, Jaime simply was what he did, what he wore, looked like. The lion. The Red Hood. Until nothing much of Jaime Lannister remained, hid in the shadows of the hood, under the golden mane.

“ _Casterly Rock_? That’s far away from these woods… how did you ever get here?” Brienne grimaces.

“You can turn back around now,” the Red Hood, no, _Jaime_ , says with an easy smile. Brienne whirls around, setting her jaw in a straight line.

“I was off to squiring around here when I came into the Kingswoods, around here, with some other squires, the knight I squired for, and some others… We went out for a hunt, for pelts… and I got lost because I kept going even after it grew dark… I wandered around aimlessly for a long while… until I somehow ended up in these parts of the woods, this side of the wall that I didn’t know existed…”

He grimaces, looking around which are his home when in fact they are not, for his home is by the shore.

Brienne just stares at him, perplex.

“… I tried to find my way out of the woods, but the more I walked, the more lost I got… I fought off beast after beast… Then the wolf came. I wanted to slay him, but I was too arrogant and too sure of my talents. He overpowered me with ease. He was about to kill me, but then he started talking all of a sudden, you can likely imagine my shock, and said that he had a better idea for me, the _Lion_ of House Lannister. So he and his friends dragged me to a well, somewhere deep in the woods where light is as rare as humans… The Well of Beasts, he called it. He tossed me into the water and pushed me under until I almost drowned.”

Brienne can do nothing but stare at him as he goes ahead to tell his story.

“When he pulled me out at the last second, the sun already started to rise. He told me that he would grant me a wish that I shall be a threatening beast as well, a _lion_ no less, but that I should be afraid for that he’d come for me… hunt me… like I hunted them… As the sun rose... I became a lion, a lion that could speak… But by night, I turned back into a human… I don’t know if he intended for it, though I imagine it to be so because that meant he could hunt me as he liked, each night... until I came after them instead. And so I have spent years hunting and being hunted.”

A dance.

A dance of survival.

Brienne blinks. He seems a lot more like her than she thought possible. In some regards, it’s like listening to her own story, in a different way.  

Always a story of loss.

Always a story of pain.

Always a story of loneliness.

And the big bad wolf at its center.

“And so I swore to kill the wolf, hunt him down… My brother once told me a story… about the King of the Woods, this mysterious Wolf King who's nothing but evil spirit, and that he can curse people to become beasts as well. To feed his army, or just for his pleasure. And that the only way to undo the curse is to slay him. And as it turns out… my brother was right about that… But whenever I fought the wolf, I lost. Because I only find him while I am human. As a lion... maybe I would stand a chance, but he isn't there during the day. But I had arranged myself with my destiny after some years. I grew bitter. I isolated myself, made it from one day to the next... but then I saw you as you had wandered off the usual paths…”

“You killed that bear that was about to eat me when we first met,” Brienne says as the images return to her, of the first time she met the lion. Brienne had wandered off after she went to see her family’s graves. Only to run into a giant bear that was about to devour her, but then the lion jumped out of the shadows and fought off the bear, putting himself between her and the beast, even at the risk of his own life.

“That's true.”

“And for that you got the scratch on your arm,” Brienne goes on. The bear had scratched him there, and she had always felt guilty for it.

“That' true, too,” he smiles. “But a considerable little price I was very willing to pay.”

A price he’d pay double and triple if it had prevented any of the things he let happen before he found her on this side of the woods…

“Why? Why did you care?”

He said he had grown bitter, no?

“I don't know why, but I started to care about you. I wanted no harm to be done to you. So I saw to it that you wouldn't get lost the same way I once did. But of course… I failed you even in that regard,” he shakes his head, sadness in his voice.

“... It wasn't your fault that the beasts came to the town, I know it now,” Brienne mutters.

“Still, I did not protect you. Because I was too concerned with my own life and my curse that I didn't risk going to town to see about you.”

“… Why didn’t you come to town by night, as a man?”

As a lion – it makes perfect sense that he didn’t come. The people would have caught him, cooked him, and hanged his pelt over the fences. But as a man?

“I did that before I met you… seemingly giving rise to that local myth that got spun about the Red Hood… but once I realized that a young girl with freckles took a liking to becoming the Red Hood’s apprentice, I feared that if I came to town and be seen, it’d only drag you to this part of the woods I tried to keep you away from so desperately.”

Brienne blinks at him.

All this time he protected her? Meant to protect her?

Though she didn’t ever know.

Until now.

“I hid deeper and deeper in the woods to keep away from world's trouble after you came to the road no more. So that you got to wander around the woods all by yourself for six years. _Six years_ in which I didn't protect you and left you to the beasts. One great protector I am, huh?” He shakes his head.

“I am alive. And I don't need a savior. I always told you,” Brienne argues.

“But you needed someone to protect you. And I wasn't there.”

“You are here now.”

He was there even when she didn’t know.

“Leading you to the wolf.”

Jaime just reckoned that if he kept around her, he could keep her safe, just like he knew he wouldn’t prevent her from seeking the wolf. So Jaime figured that perhaps it would be for the best to tie her to him with the promise of getting to the big bad wolf, so he could have her back.

“You don’t,” she snorts. “For which I could still hit you.”

“I didn’t get you to leave either, and that means he may come each night and fetch you, kill you. In any case, he is always just _that_ close to getting to you.”

Always only just a stone’s throw.

And it’s tearing him apart.

“I would go after the wolf with or without you. That makes no difference,” Brienne argues. “But what I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me.”

“How do you tell someone that you are a beast or that you are a human? A bit of both?”

“Like you did just now?”

“You didn’t trust the lion at first, so I thought that if you trusted the Red Hood, you may listen to him. I thought that in my human shape, I could talk some sense into you… apparently, I was mistaken in that… there is no way of talking sense into you… Then I thought that maybe the lion could convince you, once you brought yourself to forgive him. But even then… you couldn’t be convinced. There was just no way to make you leave. Even if I treated you plainly like an arse.”

“Well, perhaps the truth would have been the best of options.”

“Perhaps,” he huffs. “But you might be able to imagine that… this is a difficult… complication… All I know is that I am sorry. I didn't mean to cheat you. I just didn't know how to tell you that it was me. That this _is_... me. That your great role model, your childhood hero, is a man wearing a lion's skin, but has none of the beast's bravery and virtue. That your great hero is a beast. That your great hero is a man who's only out to breaking his own curse. And how the man you seem to grow fond of will always fail protecting you because he cannot stay.”

As much as Jaime tries to protect her, he always feels like failing her, and he is so fed up with it.

“... You return,” she whispers, not looking at him.

“What?” Jaime frowns at her.

“You may not stay, but you return,” Brienne mutters.

“You should go back and let me handle this, I mean it, Brienne. I swear to you that I will find the wolf, and kill him for his crimes. I just don't want to see further harm being done to you. Don’t you understand?”

“I choose where I go and what I do. You have no say in this. As you said… you have no claims to those woods either,” Brienne argues stubbornly.

“I ask you. I _beg_ you not to risk your life for this,” Jaime pleads her now, but Brienne is having none of that, “And you can beg all you want, you won’t keep me from it.”

“Seven Hells, woman,” Jaime growls, running his fingers through his hair.

Brienne licks her lips, contemplating for a moment, before she speaks up again, “Well… if what you say is true…”

“It is,” he insists.

“Then the path is clear, is it not?”

“Path?” he repeats, blinking.

“The path leading to the big bad wolf.”

“Brienne.” He rolls his eyes.

And here he dared to believe that maybe he talked some sense into her at last.

“I will not back down. I won’t leave until he is dead. Forget about it that you can protect me from that, because you will not and you cannot,” Brienne says.

Jaime bites the inside of his cheek.

“Call me stubborn as you like, I don't care. If at all… I have even more reason to see the wolf dead.”

Because he harmed him, too.

“… Then what path do you think are we to travel?” Jaime sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“The wolf must be afraid of you if he finds you such a threat that he only hunts you, or lets you be hunted, by night, when you are a human. He fears you when you are a lion. And he didn't even meet _me_ yet. Together we can kill him for certain. I have no doubt anymore,” Brienne says.

“Brienne.”

Does that woman ever listen?!

“I will not leave until it's done. You can either stand true to your promise – and have my back, or you can go elsewhere and go on sulking about your past mistakes or whatever else. I will kill the wolf no matter what. The question is if you keep your oath and help me… or not.”

“I will protect you, fear not,” Jaime replies simply.

Always.

“I don't have fear,” Brienne grumbles.

“You should. That's what keeps people from getting killed,” he warns her.

“Then the sides are clear. We will stick together and find the wolf, to break your curse and fulfill my revenge... and hopefully destroy the Well, too.”

“Destroy the Well?”

“You have said it before. There are more and more beasts, more vicious than ever. He uses the Well to feed his army.”

“Right.”

“Well, shouldn't we just seek the Well, then?”

“You think I didn't do that already? The Well is no static place, you see? Every well is a Well of Beasts when he is close. What do you think is the reason why I usually go to wells or lakes?” he huffs.

“That’s…”

“A complication?” he huffs.

“We _will_ find him, we just need a good tactic,” Brienne insists stubbornly.   
  
Jaime shakes his head. Still too full of hopes that girl.

“Well, then the plan's set, isn't it?” she says.

This is direction again, a new direction.

“If m'lady says so.”

“I am no...”

“You are. I've seen it.” He grins. Brienne bites her lower lip with a huff.

“… In any case… it’s either that sort of partnership, or I’ll go off on my own,” Brienne warns him. “No more lies. No more secrets. And you won’t keep me from the big bad wolf. Promise me that… or else we will part right at this moment.”

“And I can’t convince you to leave the woods even if I promise you to kill him?” He looks at her.

If only she said yes to that…

“No,” Brienne replies resolutely.

Of course not.

“Well, that leaves me with little choice but to agree.” He shakes his head with a soft smile, a sad smile no less.

“I have one more question, and I need you to answer me truthfully,” Brienne goes on after a long moment, looking him deep in the eye. Jaime gestures at her to speak up. The young woman balls her fists, taking a few shaky breaths.

“Why did you pull back, when you kissed me? Why did you run away?”

She just has to know.

Has to.

“Because I reminded myself of who I am and who I used to be to you back in the day. And do I have to say it again? I am too old for you,” Jaime huffs.

He shouldn’t bear such feelings for a woman he has known as a girl, has cared about as a girl.

He shouldn’t ever have developed those feelings in the first place, but somehow along the way of hunting with her… it happened. And Jaime tried, he tried to fight that urge and focus on the task he means to carry out, protecting her from harm, not dragging her into it.

Needless to mention that Jaime never had intention of bearing those feelings once he resigned himself to the fate that he would spend the rest of his days as a beast.

It just shouldn’t be.

It mustn’t be.

“But did you mean that kiss?” Brienne asks.

She has to know that one thing.

“Of course I did, I mean the things I do… but it shouldn't be,” Jaime argues.

He doesn't want Brienne to live his life.

As much as he’d like to hold her close to him, he also wants her to leave so that she is safe.

He wants to embrace her about as much as he wants to push her away, to safety, the other side of the wall.

And he rather has her leave for good than stay and live a life in danger.

So long she is alive… the rest doesn't matter.

“Who says so?” Brienne demands.

“I say so. Because I live a dangerous life and I don’t want to endanger you any further.”

Just how difficult is that to understand?

“And as I keep telling you that it is not your choice how I live my life.”

“Even if we take that aside for a second… You don't know me, Brienne. The bads I have done back in my old life. Only men who are beasts turn to such in the Well of Beasts, you see? I am no good man.”

And she deserves a good man.

A man who can protect her.

A man who can keep her from these dangerous places.

A man who can stay.

“You are no full beast,” Brienne argues, making him frown at her. “What now?”

“You are a talking lion, who turns to a man by night. If at all, you are half a beast,” Brienne concludes.

“So I am only half as bad a man, you mean?” he chuckles.

“That's how I understand it.”

“Way to make a compliment,” Jaime snorts.

“I don't mean to compliment you. I just point something out to you. There must be good in you if the Well didn't fully transform you,” Brienne insists.

A man who is so devoted to another person’s safety can’t be all that bad, can he?

Even if he is an arse most of the time.

“Your logic is unbeatable at times,” Jaime huffs.

Just how can she be hopeful even through all that bad?

“So… you meant it.”

Because Brienne has no illusions about her looks and her mulishness.

“My actions mostly speak for themselves, even if my mouth may speak another language,” he huffs.

“That was not my question.”

“But that was my answer,” Jaime replies sternly.

“And you still mean it?” she asks hesitantly.

“Yes.”

He meant it for a longer time than he’d like to admit, ever since he caught eyes of what grew to be a woman, tall and strong, fierce as ever, ugly still, but with blue eyes that seem to contain the world entire. The more time Jaime spent with Brienne as the Red Hood, the less he saw the girl in her, the one who skipped down the yellow road with cake in her pocket, proud of her chipped tooth. The more they hunted and jested together, the more he saw her as a woman, but Jaime didn’t want those feelings to happen because that still _is_ the girl he used to know, the girl who used to know him as a beast who was her travelling companion, her friend, no more, no less.

Jaime doesn’t want to mean it.

He hates himself for meaning it and would always rather steal away again, if only not to drag her into those havocked feelings he calls his own.

Jaime would rather keep her out of the storm raging in his heart than leave her in the eye of the storm without protection.

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove it to me.”

“Brienne, as I tried to tell you…”

“I don’t care. If I mean it, then you should mean it, too. So show me that you do,” Brienne demands, her eyes glistening. Jaime looks at her, momentarily frozen.

“What?” Brienne snaps.

“You mean it, after… all I just told you, after all you already know?”

Because she really shouldn’t. She should make a run for it, Seven Hells.

“… Yes.”

“This is insane.”

“I have no issue with… what you are… or who you were to me before. I have issue with you lying to me. So long you don’t lie to me anymore… I don’t care about the rest,” Brienne admits.

At first she honestly thought it was no more than adoration for her childhood hero, but the more Brienne discovered of the man under the hood the more she wanted him to stay, and hence the more hurt she felt at his rejections.

“And you are certain of that? Or is it just… desperation that drives you?”

“Desperation doesn’t drive me, no. But I am certain, yes,” Brienne replies, though her voice betrays her.

Brienne is used to living alone, she grew used to it by now, so she is not desperate to be just with anyone… though she is desperate for someone to stay with her, just not anyone.

Someone she trusts, against the odds of having been lied to by him before. Because she trusts all those other words he spoke, of meaning to protect her.

Jaime takes another moment before stepping closer to her, the leaves rustling under his boots. Brienne can do nothing but watch as her entire body seems frozen all of a sudden. He stands in front of her and the air catches in Brienne’s throat as their eyes clash, meet in the middle. One callused hand touches the side of her face and Brienne feels pulled forward until her lips collide with Jaime’s. And for a moment, the entire world just seems to have disappeared in the shadows of the woods, leaving just the two of them.

All cold fades out of her, leaving nothing but warmth.

When Jaime pulls away so both can catch their breath, his eyes are instantly back on hers as he leans his forehead against Brienne’s, “Proof enough?”

And Brienne can see the uncertainty there.

She gives the smallest of nods, offering a shy, crooked smile.

This is all so new, but at the same time… it feels a bit like coming home, because Jaime, while she didn’t know until tonight, is actually the one person who remained through the years, who didn’t leave her even when she thought he did.

And then… to think that a man as handsome as Jaime would be _interested_ in her in just that way… well, perchance it is true that both are beasts in some way, she in looks and he whenever day rises, and that this is what unites them.

It is more of an instinct that drives her, but she presses her lips against his another time, hesitantly, no more than a brush of skin against skin. And seemingly out of instinct, Jaime pulls her closer to him, pulls her into an embrace, and Brienne could get drunk on that feeling.

Could get drunk on that warmth.

Could get lost in that embrace.

After a long moment, she pulls away to look at him again.

“Having second guesses already?” he asks teasingly.

“No, but we still have things to do tonight.”

“Which would be?”

Brienne grabs her hood to pull it back over her head, “We have a path to follow, still. And we should get started the soonest possible, no?”

“Seriously?” he chuckles, but then shakes his head. “Of course you mean that.”

Brienne flashes a smirk before running ahead. Jaime pulls the hood over his face to catch up to her.

So as it seems, it’s still the same road, leading to the big bad wolf, but a different path indeed.


End file.
